Governor McCrory has had a new idea.
Given the terrible morale of teachers in his state and the exodus of veteran teachers, it is important for the state to act quickly to support its teachers.
But that is not his idea.
He wants to use Race to the Top dollars to pay $10,000 each to 450 teachers across the state.
Since merit pay and bonuses have not had a positive effect anywhere else, consider this just a way of getting rid of RTTT money fast.
He previously announced a plan to pay new teachers more, which will be a boost for the TFA that the far-right governor and legislature are bringing to the state, but he has no plans to raise the salary of experienced teachers.
The proposal sounds similar to a plan McCrory floated last summer, when he announced his intention to use $30 million of Race to the Top funds for an Education Innovation Fund that would reward 1,000 top teachers with $10,000 stipends. That proposal was met with criticism by State Board of Education members at a meeting shortly after his announcement.
In September, NC Policy Watch reached out to Gov. McCrory’s education advisor, Eric Guckian, to see if the Education Innovation Fund was on the table. While the name seemed to have changed by then, policymakers were still moving forward with the idea.
“The goal of the Governor’s Teacher Empowerment Network is the same as the Innovation Fund was, to get the money in teachers’ pockets,” said Erin Gray, Guckian’s assistant. “However, the process of how the teachers receive this money is different. We want to be able to reward as many teachers as possible with this network and produce innovative [sic], master, leader teachers to not only benefit from the extra pay, but will be active to reform schools and lead other teachers.”
Today’s announcement about the GTN comes at a time when the state’s entire teacher workforce has not received a raise since 2008, with the exception of a 1.2 percent pay increase in 2010. Recently ranked 46th in the nation in teacher pay for the second year in a row, North Carolina is also dead last in teacher salary growth over the past decade.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Another McCrory & Co. effort which diminishes collaboration and appeals to the innate sense of greed which they believe exists in us all. Perhaps the federal investigations into his connections with Duke Energy’s illegal coal ash pollution will dislodge him from the governor’s mansion.
When these merit pay schemes play out over many years, state retirement systems are slowly diminished. Many state teacher retirement funds are defined benefit plans that teachers pay a portion of their salaries into, in exchange for a pension. Deficits in public pension plans are the1%ers rational for turning public employees defined benefits into 401Ks. Thus, guaranteeing a steady flow of public workers salaries to hedge fund managers.
These folks are mired in the factory model. Schools are NOT factories where we make widgets who are all the same. Trying to do so is an exercise in futility and does no good except to promote “Hunger Games.”
Experienced teachers have value as much as innovation. This week, for example, we began advertising our Dual Language music production. All involved have been in the building fewer than two years. Fortunately, a teacher who has been in the building ten years noticed that the date we had chosen is election primaries, and our gym and stage will be used all day for voting. So we had to move the date of the program. But thank goodness for this teacher who had been around long enough to know some of the routine things the building is used for. That is of great value.
It reminds me of the mystery parable about the merchant and the pearl.
What is truly of great value in a school? Balance, perhaps. Not an over-emphasis on innovation over experience. Experience does matter.
Of course all of those dates where school facilities are in use should have been on the administrative calendar. Not to dis the value of institutional knowledge, it shouldn’t take a veteran teacher to point that out. I take your point, though, Joanna. It would be really smart of deformers to get rid of all teachers who have been in the system for long enough to be a fount of school lore. It’s much easier to get people to go along with your plan if they have no background knowledge. The deformers are trying to rewrite history. Even we accept the idea that public education was designed to keep us in our place and keep producing worker bees.
@ Eleanor and jcgrim:
You both make substantive points.
Many if not most of those who subscribe to corporate-style “reform” follow the scent of money…greed. They plan to cash in on public education funding, much as they’ve already fleeced taxpayers in the mortgage and financial markets and in rigging Libor (interbank interest rates) and Foreign Exchange (Fx) markets.
Often, as recent history shows, they make a real mess of things, they refuse to take any responsibility, they want subsidized bailouts, and then…they demand “accountability” for the public schools.
If mainstream ‘journalists’ were to do their homework and report this honestly, they’d call this what is is: nonsense, delusional, perverse.
Public pensions are part of the whole privatization mentality. And it’s not a healthy state of thinking (if it can be called that) because it undermines a core pillar of democratic governance, and that’s a commitment to the public good. It’s what the Framers had in mind in the Preamble…”We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…promote the general Welfare…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Obviously, conservative Republicans (like those in North Carolina) have no commitment whatsoever to popular sovereignty, freedoms for all citizens, equality, justice, tolerance, and promoting the commonweal. Though the philosophical underpinnings may not be the same, the surprising thing is that many of the educational programs and practices and policies promoted by some Democrats (including President Obama) are not so different from those pushed by the likes of ALEC, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and the big bankers. And when, exactly, has ALEC or the US Chamber of the Business Roundtable or Wall Street advocated for national policies (like taxes) that were good for the citizenry – “the People” – rather than for themselves?
The battle over Common Core and charters and vouchers is not only about public education. It’s about the nature of democracy itself, and whether we have a democratic republic that represents governance “of the people, by the people, for the people,” or whether it’s governance by the ‘upper crust,’ the ‘elite,’ the oligarchs.
Republicans and Supreme Court conservatives are all-in for the upper-bracket few over the many. And North Carolina is the conservative poster child –– politically, educationally, scientifically, environmentally –– for egocentric delusion fueled by greed, ignorance and dogmatism.
“And North Carolina is the conservative poster child –– politically, educationally, scientifically, environmentally –– for egocentric delusion fueled by greed, ignorance and dogmatism.”
Well said, democracy.
All I see is one bonehead idea after the next coming out of our state legislature, especially in education reform. The next governor is going to have a hell of a mess on his/her hands when they inherit the results of bad policy. The mass exodus of veteran teachers has been happening, and will continue to do so as long as these policies continue. Enrollment for education majors in the state colleges have already seen a drop, and will continue.
McCrory, and the whole republican legislature, have moved us backwards and will take years to fix.
Reblogged this on McBlog.
Zak, and what Republicans did not tank, Obama/Duncan and Co. pounded the last nail into the Education Reform Coffin. We have the most bypartisan effort to kick our trained teachers and our children to the curb. Soon, it will be too late and we will be inundated by TFAtypes who most likely still live at home, eat at mom’ stable and they are the Best & Brightest offering our neediest children and communities the wisdoms of their life-experiences. Please pick up your socks!
NC Gov RTTT monies to reward teachers is an insult and I hope that teachers do not take it, although, they have every right for more money…ALL of them.
Will the last HQ Real Teachers turn off the lights in NC as their U-Hauls leave the state!
Soon, many States will need a huge number of TFAtypes, and the US will have to initiate The Draft 4 Teachers Program. All 18 year olds have to sign up and be available to teach for two years in an empty school near them. No DraftCardBurners allowed.
Good Luck America!
This new “bonus” is NOT a bonus. It’s a fee for services rendered thinly disguised as a bonus. Who among my colleagues has the time to do all it will take to become one of McCrory’s elite? Who would want to do so?
I collaborate with my team. I do not want to place myself in a role that in any way diminishes what each of them does.
This is just another mess created by people who have NO idea how public schools function.
Quit coming up with numbers to reward, Governor. 25% — 450 — whatever. You insult all of us when you single out some of us for either praise or punishment.