Archives for category: Teacher Pay
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West Virginia: Teachers Strike Across the State for Pay, Health Care

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2018 //
14

 

West Virginia teachers went out on strike across the state, closing down every public school.

“Teachers across West Virginia walked off the job Thursday amid a dispute over pay and benefits, causing more than 277,000 public school students to miss classes even as educators swarmed the state Capitol in Charleston to protest.

“All 55 counties in the state closed schools during Thursday’s work stoppage, Alyssa Keedy, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Education, said.
 “Work stoppages by public employees are not lawful in West Virginia and will have a negative impact on student instruction and classroom time,” West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Steven Paine said in a statement this week. “Families will be forced to seek out alternative safe locations for their children, and our many students who depend on schools for daily nutrition will face an additional burden. I encourage our educators to advocate for the benefits they deserve, but to seek courses of action that have the least possible disruption for our students.”

“Data from the National Education Association show that in 2016, West Virginia ranked 48th in average teacher salaries. Only Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Dakota sat below it in the rankings, which included 50 states and the District.

Categories Teacher Pay, Unions, West Virginia

Faced with Teacher Shortage, Tulsa Creates Its Own TFA Program

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2018 //
48

 

Tulsa has trouble finding and retaining teachers. It may be due to the fact that Oklahoma has low teacher pay, perhaps the lowest in the country.

The district is responding to the teacher shortage by creating its own TFA-style teacher-training program, with five weeks of preparation for people with a bachelor’s degree. In only five weeks, candidates will be able to step in as teachers of elementary and secondary schools, as well as special education classes.

The program has applied for but not yet been approved by the state. 

It is a nail in the coffin of the teaching profession, as is TFA. If people can become full-fledged teachers in five weeks, then teaching is not a profession. How would the people of Oklahoma feel about qualifying their doctors, lawyers, and accountants with a five-week training program?

The superintendent of the Tulsa city public schools is Deborah Gist, who previously achieved a level of national notoriety when she was State Commissioner of Education in Rhode Island. In 2010, Gist backed up the local superintendent in impoverished Central Falls when she threatened to fire every member of the staff of Central Falls High School because of low test scores (including the lunch room staff and the custodians). That event coincided with the release of “Waiting for Superman” and the Gates-driven movement to blame all the ills of urban education on “bad teachers.” Gist, like Rhee, enjoyed a measure of fame for her “get Tough” attitude toward teachers.

Categories Oklahoma, Teach for America, Teacher Education, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Tulsa

Florida: Jeb Bush’s Devious Plan to Eliminate State Class Size Reduction Mandate

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2017 //
13

In 2002,the people of Florida adopted an amendment to the state Constitution that mandated the reduction of class sizes.

Beginning in the 2010-11 school year, classes from prekindergarten to grade 3 were capped at 18; grades 4-8 were capped at 22; grades 9-12 were limited to 25.

Ever since, the state’s politicians—led by Jeb Bush—have sought to eliminate or roll back that expensive mandate.

Jeb Bush is trying a new tactic now. He has devised a devious plan, which offers to raise teschers’ Rock bottom Salaries in exchange for killing the class size limits.

Scott Maxwell of the zorlando Sentinel quickly spotted the sneaky trade off.

“So, news that the leader of Jeb Bush’s education foundation has drafted a constitutional amendment to boost pay sounds great … until you read the fine print.

“That’s when you see the proposal only provides money for teacher raises if Floridians first vote to lift the cap on class sizes and agree to stuff more children in Florida classrooms.

“And even then, there’s no guarantee of how much in raises teachers would get.

“In other words, if you want to maybe treat your teachers like something better than dirt, you have to first agree to go back to the days where you treated your kids like dirt.

“Happy voting, everyone!

“In some regards, the proposal by Patricia Levesque — the head of Bush’s Excellence in Education foundation and a member of the state’s Constitution Revision Commission — is no surprise.

“Bush hated the idea of forcing the state to spend more on smaller classes.

“Back when he was governor, he opposed the 2002 amendment and announced that, if voters passed it, he had “devious plans” to undermine it.

“Actually, Bush didn’t announce his devious plans. He was caught divulging them to allies by a reporter with a tape recorder whom Bush hadn’t spotted in the room.

“So now, 15 years later, we have Devious Plans 2.0.

“Levesque says there’s nothing devious about her plans. She simply wants to give school districts more “flexibility” in meeting the class-size requirements, by allowing them to use averages.

“Your kid’s math class could have 36 students as long as another math class has 13.

“She says the teacher-pay part of her proposal is simply about making sure the money stays in the schools, the way voters want.

“Frankly, I don’t buy that.

“I think the teacher-raise proposal is just a gimmick — that Levesque knows there’s no way 60 percent of Floridians would vote for bigger class sizes. So she tucked a sweetener in there … a way to let backers run a campaign on a popular topic (raising teacher pay) instead of the real goal (cramming more kids in each classroom).

“If raising teacher pay were truly the goal, we’d see an amendment that proposed just that. But that’s not what this is.

“Theoretically, Levesque is right when she says implementing the class-size amendment requires flexibility.

“But we have been duped before on that front.

“In fact, legislators have flexed the intent right out of the law.

“The 2002 amendment, after all, was clear. It capped class sizes at 25 students for high school, 22 students in fourth through eighth grades and 18 in pre-K through third.

“Still, Florida schools are full of classrooms that have 28, 32 and 35 kids.

“How? Lawmakers created loopholes the size of Iowa (which, by the way, also pays its teachers more than Florida).

“Lawmakers exempted electives and extracurricular classes from the caps — which sounded OK at first. I mean, 30 students in a PE class or 40 in chorus sounds reasonable.

“But then lawmakers began reclassifying every class you can imagine as electives.

“American literature became an “extracurricular.”

“So did French. And Spanish. And marine biology.”

Just start with the assumption that a Jeb Bush and his so-called Foundation for Educational Excellence Don’t care a whit about students or teachers or education, and you will get the picture.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Class size, Florida, Teacher Pay

Wisconsin: What Happened to Teachers After Scott Walker Crushed the Unions?

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2017 //
24

David Madland and Alex Rowell of the Center for American Progress reviewed the impact on education of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s infamous Act 10, enacted in 2011, which crushed unions.

Some teachers left the profession or the state. Salaries and benefits declined. The average age and experience of teachers declined. Teachers moved from district to district, seeking higher pay.

They wrote:

“Six years ago, the state of Wisconsin passed the highly controversial 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, which virtually eliminated collective bargaining rights for most public-sector workers, as well as slashed those workers’ benefits, among other changes. These attacks on public-sector workers are spreading throughout the country. Iowa recently passed an Act 10-inspired law with similar policies affecting public-sector workers and their unions.1 Other states and members of Congress are considering enacting such policies, and with its ruling on Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the U.S. Supreme Court may act to weaken public-sector unions and teachers’ ability to collectively bargain.

“This issue brief examines the impact of the law on Wisconsin’s K-12 public education system and state economy. While this brief focuses on Act 10’s impact on Wisconsin teachers based on the data available, the same forces driving changes in the teaching workforce can also affect the broader public sector. Proponents of Act 10 insisted that reducing collective bargaining rights for teachers would improve education by eliminating job protections such as tenure and seniority-based salary increases. As Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) argued, “We no longer have seniority or tenure. That means we can hire and fire based on merit, we can pay based on performance. That means we can put the best and the brightest in our classrooms and we can pay them to be there.” However, the facts suggest that Act 10 has not had its promised positive impact on educational quality in the state.”

Teachers have lower pay, lower pension and health insurance benefits. There is more turnover as teachers move from one district to another seeking higher pay. Act 10 had its intended effect of smashing unions, which represented 14.1% of workers in 2011, but only 9% now.

What kind of country thinks the way to get better teachers is to cut their pay and benefits?

Scott Walker is a puppet of the Koch brothers. His vision of the future is mean and stupid.

Categories Koch Brothers, Teacher Pay, Teachers and Teaching, Unions, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

The Lessons of Virginia

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2017 //
59

Here are a few of the lessons I take away from the crucial Virginia elections. You may have others. Feel free to chime in.

First, the Trump message of ”American carnage” (the theme of his inaugural address) failed. Appeals to fear didn’t work. The blatant and latent warnings about crime, immigration, race, and insecurity lost. Virginians Close hope over fear.

Second, Trump phony themes of patriotism, delivered by references to athletes taking a knee and sacred Confederate statues, were not enough to overcome opposition to Trump and Trumpism. Voters are not dumb. They see through the smokescreen.

Third, Democrats win by uniting their base, including parents and teachers. Northam spoke positively about Virginia’s public schools and promised to reduce the burden of testing, to expand early childhood education, and to improve teachers’ Salaries. Not a word about charters or choice.

His pledge:

“Our kids deserve to go to schools where they feel safe and get the highest quality education. We can’t allow the Trump Administration to destroy the success of Virginia’s public schools, public universities, or community college system. Ralph will fight to defend our public schools and will support classroom innovation to develop new methods of teaching our kids the skills they need for a 21st century economy.

“As a member of the Children’s Cabinet, Dr. Northam and the McAuliffe administration are helping our most challenged schools combat chronic absenteeism and poor academic performance — but there’s still work to do. The commonwealth of Virginia spends, on average, $80 million per year to remediate students in kindergarten through third grade. We need to reevaluate how we test our youngest students and ensure we’re putting them on track for success at the beginning of their academic careers. A big part of addressing this issue is making sure quality pre-K is available to all young Virginians — though it also involves challenging conventional methods of student assessments and alternatives to having students repeat grades at early ages.”

There is more.

Every Democratic Candidate in 2018 should read Dr. Notham’s commonsense approach to education.

Categories Early Childhood Education, Support for public schools, Teacher Pay, Virginia

Tim Slekar: Wisconsin Teachers Win a Lifetime License But Lose Their Profession

By dianeravitch
October 2, 2017 //
6

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a lackey of the Koch brothers and ALEC, is always on the lookout for new ways to undermine the teaching profession.

Tim Slekar reports that he found a clever new way to deprofessionalize teachers.

The legislature just approved fast track certification (lowered standards) and “lifetime licenses” for those already teaching and after 3 years of teaching service for new teachers.

Slekar writes:

Do teachers really think a “lifetime license” was included in the Walker budget to actually help teachers? Seriously. This Act 10 Walker? This is the guy who maligned teachers for having a job with health care and retirement benefits. Why would he all of sudden do something positive for teachers?

He hasn’t! A ‘lifetime license” is just the newest way to promote a lifetime of low wages and a diminished professional status.

Back in the day, he notes, teachers had collective bargaining and a strong union to protect their profession, but Walker got rid of that with Act 10.

Now all they have to do to get a “lifetime license” is to ask for it.

Something is rotten in Denmark and in Madison. What Walker really wants is to lock teachers into a low-wage job.

Scott Walker joins the Wall of Shame, a dishonor he richly deserves for his continued efforts to destroy public schools and the teaching profession.

Categories Teacher Pay, Teachers, Unions, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Delaware: Charter Teachers Call in Sick After Their Principal Was Suspended for Trying to Raise Their Salaries

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2017 //
6

The charter world is filled with surprises. With all the autonomy they get, there is little to no accountability.

In Delaware, blogger Kevin Ohlandt reports that the police removed the principal of the Thomas Edison Charter School, Salome Thomas-El, because he fought to get his teachers a measly pay raise. The board of the charter stood by and watched as the principal was taken out of his school.

The teachers had been promised a raise of $750, like public school teachers in the state, and the board agreed, then reneged. The principal wanted them to get the raise. He had to go.

The school had a surplus of funds from their FY2017 budget to the tune of $534,000.00. The teachers were requesting a 1.5% increase in salary which Thomas-EL asked for from the board. The request was denied. What happened from there I do not know… yet. But to publicly shame a charter leader who is beloved by his staff and the community around him is in very bad taste. Not to mention the appearance this gives to students. This is a school with a low-income/poverty population hovering around 96%. The last thing they need is to see their school leader kicked out of school over what amounts to him fighting for higher teacher pay at a school that is known for having the lowest paid teaching staff in New Castle County. But they can afford to have lavish Christmas parties and send seven people to a charter school conference?

The next day, 20 teachers called in sick to protest.

The Board of Directors at Thomas Edison Charter School are facing a head-on karma collision today. At least 20 teachers called out sick today forcing the school to close for the day in early dismissal. Dr. Salome Thomas-EL has been placed on indefinite leave by the board. Parents don’t know what is going on due to the lack of transparency coming from the board.

Yesterday afternoon, members of the board met with teachers after school. Note to self: find out if there was a quorum because there was no agenda posted for this meeting. Several teachers walked out of this meeting.

I did find out their “Foundation” account is due to the school owning the building. That account is meant for lease and renovation payments to which they receive payments from the state. Whether it is used for that purpose, I cannot say. But it is my hope someone in the state looks into that. My question would be why they need a separate bank account and why those bank statements aren’t available to the public since it is fueled by taxpayer funds.

At this point it is a no-brainer that the Delaware Dept. of Education has gotten involved. Far too much has happened since yesterday morning. I have not found out whether or not a charter school board has the authority to deny teachers a state approved increase in pay. My sense is that they do not have this authority. And is Thomas Edison the only charter denying these increases to their teachers?

Why would a charter school want to be known as having the lowest paid teachers in the state?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Delaware, Teacher Pay

Maurice Cunningham: What is DFER and Why Are They Polling about Teacher Pay in Massachusetts?

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2017 //
75

Maurice Cunningham is a professor of political science in the University of Massachusetts who has become very interested in “dark money.” He doesn’t write about education policy per se, but he keeps raising uncomfortable but necessary questions about who is funding attacks on public schools, teachers, and unions.

In this post, he wondered why DFER (Democrats for Education Reform) released a poll showing that the public is opposed to raising the pay of teachers who are in the “excess pool.”

He searched the DFER website and could not find the poll or the methods or the questions.

He writes:

How were the questions worded? The story describes the teachers as being in the “excess pool’ — educators who lost their positions because of poor performance or job cuts, or who principals don’t want to hire — now working as co-teachers or in other positions.” But did the question ask if respondents favored “unwanted teachers” to get paid? Or did they favor teachers in the “excess pool” to get paid? Or something else? You’d likely get different responses based on the wording. And the question would need to explain what those terms meant. The “unwanted teachers” are working after all, and what if they aren’t wanted because of inept or misguided administrators? That’s why they have a union to protect them in the first place.

The School Committee is set to vote on a contract negotiated between the city and the Boston Teachers Union in which all teachers including those in the excess pool would get a raise. DFER MA State Director Liam Kerr says that voters “When presented with the facts” don’t want the excess pool teachers to get the raise. But voters weren’t presented with these facts because the contract was just finalized and the poll was conducted in May. And to go back to the nature of the questions asked, “the facts” presented were selected by DFER MA.

Which leads to a larger problem: as Neil Postman argued years ago in Amusing Ourselves to Death, poll respondents often have a limited understanding of the topic being presented to them. From the depths of my ignorance of the topic of the excess pool, I’ll confess I don’t understand the nuances of the issue or the practical application.

That leads us back to taking DFER MA’s word on this. What (or Who)? Is DFER? We don’t know, because it is a dark money front that hides its contributors. Sure the organization is represented in Massachusetts by Mr. Kerr, but he’s an agent. Who are the principals? In other words, show me the money. Who is putting up the money for the political activities of DFER MA? Maybe they are selfless do-gooders too shy to make their names know. But until DFER Ma comes clean about who really controls its political operations (hint: it is hedge fund money, probably from New York), there is every reason to regard their pronouncements with deep skepticism.

We know that DFER is hedge fund money. What we don’t know is their end game. They are zealously pro-charter. They are anti-union. Their board members are very rich. Why are they worried that somewhere a teacher might get a raise of $5,000 when that is the kind of money they spend on a good dinner?

Categories Boston, Dark Money, Democrats for Education Reform, Massachusetts, Teacher Pay, Unions

In Michigan, Few Want to Become Teachers: Thanks, Betsy DeVos, Rick Snyder, and Arne Duncan!

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2017 //
45

Alternet published an article about the dire condition of teachers and teaching in Michigan. Nancy Derringer describes the growing crisis over the future of the profession in a state that treats teachers like Kleenex.

The legislature has hacked away at teacher benefits, and would-be teachers have gotten the message.

The latest data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Title II program, which supports teacher training and professional development, show enrollment in teacher prep at the college level is falling, sharply in some states. In Michigan, 11,099 students were enrolled in the state’s 39 teacher-prep programs in 2014-15, the most recent data available. That is a 3,273-student decline from just two years previous, in 2012-13. Since 2008, the total number of Michigan college students studying to become a teacher is down more than 50 percent.

Michigan State University saw its teacher-prep enrollment fall 45 percent between 2010 and 2014, from 1,659 to 911. Grand Valley State University’s tumbled by 67 percent, from 751 to 248 in the same period. Only the University of Michigan-Dearborn and Central Michigan University saw increases, of 39 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Whether these numbers portend a coming teacher shortage is unclear. But it does reflect a trend that has been ongoing for some time, said Abbie Groff-Blaszak, director of the Office of Educator Talent with the state Department of Education. Not only are fewer aspiring teachers entering programs, but fewer are completing them, and there’s been a decrease in teaching certificates issued by the DOE.

The combination of Betsy DeVos, Rick Snyder, and Arne Duncan has been deadly for the teaching profession:

The push to improve student test scores, particularly among low-income students, has led to a number of changes that put more accountability on teachers. Groff-Blaszak said the decline in enrollment has tracked with Race to the Top reforms, which in addition to rewarding excellent educators, also provides for the removal of ineffective ones. Such reforms have not been universally embraced, for fear that they are a cover for sapping the power of unions, or holding teachers accountable, via testing, for factors they say they have little control over.

And before they even become teachers, teacher prep students must pass the state’s Professional Readiness Exam, which was toughened in recent years in an effort to raise teaching standards. In 2013-14, its first year, fewer than a third of students attempting it passed on their first try. At Western Michigan University, education students must pass the PRE and maintain a 3.0 average, said Marcia Fetters, the school’s associate dean and director of teacher education.

“When I entered teaching in 1982, there was no GPA requirement,” Fetters said, who described the current PRE, which tests math skills, reading and writing, as “infamous.”

“I don’t know how valid the test is to serve as a predictor of student performance in a teacher-ed program,” said Fetters. “On the one hand, we only want the qualified, but at the same time, if the test itself is not valid? We have had complaints.”

For charter school teachers, the situation is even more dire. They get little or no mentoring or support. Turnover among staff is high. And salaries are lower than in public schools.

Does anyone in Michigan care about educating the next generation of students? Apparently not.

Categories Michigan, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching

CNN: Why a Teacher in Oklahoma is Begging for Money on the Highway

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2017 //
28

What’s wrong with this picture?

Teresa Danks has been teaching since 1996. She teaches first grade. She has a master’s degree.

Why is she standing by a busy road in Tulsa begging for money?

Watch the 54-second video.

Then send it to Bill Gates, The Walton Family Foundation, Eli Broad, Mark Zuckerberg or Priscilla Chan, Michael Bloomberg, or Betsy DeVos with your ideas about how to improve education.

Categories Oklahoma, Teacher Pay
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