Mercedes Schneider was rated a “highly effective” teacher. She received a bonus of $427. 76. She gave it to a friend who is raising an autistic child.
A fourth-grade teacher at Pierre Capdeau Charter School in Louisiana got a bonus of $43,000 for raising her students’ test scores by 88%. The bonus is about 75% of her annual salary. A kindergarten teacher got even larger gains but her bonus was only $4,086 because the kindergarten scores don’t count for the state rankings.
The school is rated a D by the state. Last year it was graded D-.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Alas, Merecedes teaches in a true public school.
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We are not used car salesmen.
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Thank you. Back in the day my grandmother never wanted to join the union (she was in Chicago…so no choice). She said she was a professional, she was a teacher and should be treated as such. She used her year long sabbaticals (yep teachers used to even get years off to study) she studied aeronautics, astronomy, and other useful science stuff. She was a chemistry teacher from 1925 until the 1950s. What happened between now and then to make us both just another salesman and the enemy?
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Does raising one’s students test scores by 88% mean compared to a pre-test, or compared to their scores as third graders or what?
In any case, it looks like we might have our Michelle Rhee replacement.
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That’s what I was thinking.
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The bonus system is unsustainable though, because it was an extension of a federal grant:
“New Beginnings — a group of charter schools that serves almost 2,000 students in three elementary schools and one high school — allotted about $722,000 of a $2.3 million federal grant for a bonus system at its elementary schools, Capdau, Medard H. Nelson and Gentilly Terrace.
The goal was to improve teacher retention and student test scores and offer more competitive pay. The grant funds from the U.S. Department of Education’s Gulf Coast Recovery Grant Initiative were supposed to have been spent by August of 2012, but New Beginnings was granted a one-year extension.”
They’d have to fire a teacher to pay a 43k bonus in my district. Maybe 2 aides OR one teacher.
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New Beginnings, throwing money at the problems.
Check out the many challenges of the organization.
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I’d love to see a real per pupil breakdown in New Orleans. Private money plus ordinary state and local funding plus recovery money plus any federal grants that go exclusively to charter schools.
You really need a number to make comparisons to other cities and certainly projections, as far as “sustainable” (grants run out, private money dries up, etc.).
Has anyone done that?
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When will our dazzled by VAM, innovators admit VAM is a sham?
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Never.
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Accepting the money implies we accept what it stands for. I know times are hard, but we should all publicly donate this dirty money. If we accept it when VAM is “good” (like a bonus), who will believe us when we reject the flawed ratings? It is all flawed and we should not stoop to reducing what we do to a sales model. Teachers are so much more than that and we must put our money where our mouth is. Publicly donate it – it will stand as a record that we have rejected it all along.
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AMEN, Danielle.
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Danielle: while each person has to answer to his/her conscience, I think your comments go to the heart of the matter.
And there is a practical catch to this. When someone literally buys into the charter/voucher/privatization movement, it becomes difficult to even allow contrary thoughts to enter one’s brain. It’s good for you so (in self-defense) it must be good in some bigger more important sense.
Think of TFA. In these tough times, this jobs program for almost-anything-but-teaching-in-the-classroom sucks a lot of people in, and some can’t seem to find their way out. Their response to constructive criticism? More jobs for adults as members of rapid response teams to protect the jobs program.
And they’ll convince themselves “it’s all for the kids!”
This is what is truly dangerous: that immoral double-speak and double-think become openly and widely accepted without question.
For example, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is for and against and somewhat for/somewhat against high-stakes standardized testing.
Simultaneously. And he’s comfortable with that, rheeally…
The rest of us, and an old dead Greek guy, not really—
“A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.” [Demosthenes]
😎
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The COMMENT’s sections are always fun to read.
For example in the second article about the bonuses at the Capdeau Charter Schol, someone named “roastbeefer” chimes in about how great their merit pay system described in the article is, and about “how our country was founded on free enterprise and incentives for performance. you want to fix the education system in new orleans? you have to provide incentives and this is a good start. We need to expand pay for performance to all teachers.”
Someone named “Mac Coon” lets loose with this in response:
———–
MAC COON:
“You, ‘roastbeefer’, are so drunk on the post-Katrina koolaid. This corporatist magic show isn’t about fixing anything, but about the wallets of bloodsucking, greedy, fat capitalist pigs. What they’re capitalizing on is the ignorance of citizens like yourself who are so easily misled into believing that teachers are or were the only factor responsible for students’ progress or failure, but also because many, if not most taxpayers choose to be oblivious to the fact that their taxes were not, and still are not being utilized properly vis-a- vis public education. It’s the old ‘i don’t want to think about all that’ excuse with it’s twin ‘let someone else handle it’ cop out.
“If you and those like you were to even cursorily examine the situation with N.O. public schools before and since Katrina, it would be easy to see the discrepancies with where funding went before and is now going. if all these public funds—which are being used to staff, supply, renovate, rebuild, and build from scratch all these facilities now being allocated to/occupied by charters—had been used instead on real public education, both before and after Katrina, we wouldn’t be having this ridiculous debate about ‘teacher merit,’ since most of the problems in public schools had nothing to do with teachers’ abilities. Obviously you know very little, if anything, about what teachers really experienced under those deplorable circumstances, or you’re just a paid shill trolling here for John White, Jindal, or some despicable corporation.
“If you’re not just another shill, you should educate yourself on what is really happening with this charter/voucher scam, which is nothing less than the destruction of public education and the teaching profession, and replacing it with unaccountable, autonomous corporationsm and inexperienced, uncertified, unprofessional persons posing as teachers (TFA and the like), and this accountability bullshit, along with this (sub) standardized testing crap are just smokescreens to keep the ignorant in the dark about where our money’s really going.”
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I feel the same way about a bonus that I do about “Teacher of the Year.” It degrades the profession and smells of “tokenism.” Teachers enter the profession because they want to make a difference in students’ lives, and they want to contribute to the future of America. They know that the effectiveness of a democracy depends on the critical thinking skills of its population. Like police, firefighters and EMTs we are there to serve our communities. We don’t need trophies or a bonus to validate our commitment.
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Mercedes Schneider, public school teacher: score one for honor, compassion and decency.
Charter schools that reward one teacher with high test scores with $46,000 and another with $4,086 because the first ‘counts’ and the second ‘doesn’t count’: score one for the charterite/privatizer mantra of “unfettered greed will answer every need” and “throwing money at a problem is no solution” in the service of “cognitive dissonance” and “$tudent $ucce$$.”
Bribery determined by the luck of the draw is not a long-term sustainable solution to providing every parent and student the choice of a well-resourced well-supported public school in their community.
Immorality lies at the very heart of the charter/voucher/privatizer movement.
Their defenders on this blog—the silence is deafening.
😒
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OMG…this is disgusting.
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“Mercedes Schneider was rated a “highly effective” teacher. She received a bonus of $427. 76”
Good to know that these VAMmers have merit pay down to such a precise science that they can specify a teacher’s “added value” to the nearest cent.
Their measurement gurus must come from NIST to be that precise.
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An interesting continuation of the story is that the kindergarten teacher was fired from that charter school with no explanation. She is now at a public school in another parish (we have parishes instead of counties in LA) and is doing very well.
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I AM the (former) kindergarten teacher referenced in this story and the above comment about me is true. As far as teacher to pupil ratios, never did I have a class of less than 25 students. I also had no aide or interventionist to pull my students. My students were not serviced for special needs nor were they appropriately designated for ESL. Despite countless hours of hard work, hours upon hours of self-directed professional development, and even continuing my own education to ensure I was providing the most up-to-date instructional strategies, it is true, I was fired without just cause, with no warning, and given only hours to clean out my classroom. My email was wiped out within three hours of receiving my termination letter and I was denied the bonus that I had earned because I was not returning to the school. I was not actively looking for a new job; completely blindsided does not even accurately express my shock. As the above comment states I did in fact find employment in a new parish, only three days after being terminated. I applied, was interviewed and hired in a matter of 24 hours. My resume and data speaks for itself.I have never been happier. Although the situation I was dealt was wrong and disgraceful to the New Beginnings Charter School Network, it was the best thing they ever did for me. An adequate bonus would have been nice, a word of thanks or gratitude would have been appreciated, but letting me go opened my eyes. I would have faithfully gone down with a sinking ship. Instead, I am flourishing and becoming even better in a supportive, appreciative and engaging environment that is well on its way to becoming an A school and leading the way to our parish’s continued success.
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