Archives for category: Teacher Pay
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Betsy DeVos’s Super PAC Contributed to Defeat of Teacher Candidates in Oklahoma

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2017 //
29

In Oklahoma, the public schools are under-funded, and teachers are buying their own supplies in many schools. Last fall, a number of teachers ran for legislative seats. Needless to say, none of them was lavishly funded. But their opponents had the backing of Betsy DeVos’ American Federation for Children. How AFC can be “for” children when they oppose funding their schools and paying their teachers a decent salary is a mystery.

Oklahoma Watch reports that DeVos’ AFC PAC contributed at least $180,000 to defeat teachers running for the legislature.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Funding, Oklahoma, Teacher Pay

Teacher: What Mike Pence Did to Schools and Teachers in Indiana

By dianeravitch
March 4, 2017 //
58

A retired teacher shared the story of Mike a Pence’s role in transforming the schools of Indiana:


Our former governor, Mike Pence, absolutely loves vouchers.Under his “leadership” Indiana became a national leader in giving vouchers to students and families. In fact, we have the dubious reputation of being one of the fastest-growing voucher states. We have a ridiculous merit pay system where highly-effective teachers in the wealthy Carmel-Clay school system received a bonus check of $2422, whereas highly-effective teachers in the poorer school system of Wayne Township a few miles away received $42. Because of Pence and the Republican legislature, many schools in areas of high poverty are struggling financially. I retired from Muncie Community Schools where I was offered an early retirement incentive of staying on the teacher health insurance plan until I turned 65. Hundreds of other employees and I took the “bait” and were promptly dropped from the plan, leaving us without health insurance. Now because of the inequitable funding to schools (and because of a new local superintendent who doesn’t appear to like teachers much), the school board has made its final contract offer to teachers (as reported in our local newspaper, the Star Press):

• A 10 percent reduction in salary for teachers making between $36,005 and
$61,006 for 2015-16.

• A 28 percent cut, including a 20 percent reduction in salary retroactive to July 1,
2016 and the cancellation of two pay checks in the 2016-17 contract.

• Contributing a fixed total to insurance premiums, equal to about 68 percent to the
health insurance option

• Eliminating sick bank contributions

• Eliminating additional pay for teaching a sixth period

• Eliminating the $150 professional development stipend for teachers

• Eliminating retiree benefits

• A one-time salary raise to the minimum of $37,000 for any teacher currently
making less

Thank you, Vice-President Pence, for ruining the teaching profession in Muncie and in the entire state of Indiana.

Categories Education Reform, Indiana, Teacher Pay, Teachers, Vouchers

North Carolina: Governor McCrory Concedes

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2016 //
9

 

 

In one of the closest elections in the country, Governor Pat McCrory conceded at last to State Attorney General Roy Cooper in the race for governor.

 

McCrory came to office as the formerly moderate mayor of Charlotte. Once in office, he joined the far-right wing Tea Party majority in the General Assembly to pass legislation for charters and vouchers, to eliminate the respected North Carolina Teaching Fellows program (which required a five-year education commitment and produced career teachers) and replaced it with a $6 million grant to Teach for America, and enacted law after law to reduce the status of the teaching profession.

 

To understand the damage that McCrory and his cronies did to the state read this summary of five years of political wrecking imposed on the state.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, North Carolina, Privatization, Teacher Pay, Teacher Tenure, Vouchers

Utah State Board Has a Terrible Idea: Base Teacher Pay on Evaluations

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2016 //
22

We know that teacher evaluation is not a science. Either it relies on principal judgment or peer judgment or both, which are subjective; or it relies on test scores, which are “objective,” but notoriously invalid and unreliable because they reflect which students are in the classroom, not teacher quality. Nothing could be more outrageous or demoralizing than tying teacher pay to teacher evaluations, which is what the Utah Board of Education is now considering.

Please write and let them know why this will be very harmful to teachers and students.

One of our readers (Threatened Out West) sent this notice:

The Utah State School Board is planning on voting on Friday to make teacher compensation based on teacher evaluations. This will be a DISASTER.

This is the quote from a newsletter that I saw from one of the members of the board: Proposed Rule Change Would Base District Compensation Primarily on Evaluations

The Utah State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to amendments to R277-531 Public Educator Evaluation Requirements (PEER) and to R277-533 District Educator Evaluation Systems that would require Utah school districts to base educator compensation systems primarily on the district’s educator evaluation system beginning in the 2018-19 school year. The changes also eliminate any provision in Board Rule that is not also required in state statute. The Board worked with the Utah School Superintendents Association to give districts enough leeway to make the rule’s implementation more feasible. Final approval will likely come during the Board’s November 4 meeting

Utah school board members MUST be contacted! Particularly in you’re in Utah, do it NOW. But we could use teachers in other states to also email and let the board know what a terrible idea this is. Thank you.

http://schoolboard.utah.gov/board-member-bios

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Utah

Stuart Egan: A North Carolina Teacher Rebukes the Former Chairman of State Board of Education Defending the GOP Assault on Public Schools

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2016 //
3

Stuart Egan, NBCT high school teacher in North Carolina, wrote a sharp rebuke to Phil Kirk, chairman emeritus of the State Board of Education, for defending the Republican efforts to defund public schools, demoralize teachers, and cut spending. Kirk claims that all the criticism is based on myths; the Tea Party majority in the General Assembly really do care about public schools, as does Governor McCrory.

Egan goes through each “myth” to demonstrate that the Kirk is cherrypicking data to defend the Republican leadership of the state.

This article, an open letter, demonstrates why teachers need tenure.

Categories North Carolina, Republicans, Teacher Pay, Teacher Tenure, Teachers

Karin Klein: Why Reformers Were Wrong about Teachers

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2016 //
25

Karin Klein wrote education editorials for the Los Angeles Times for years. She now writes freelance, and she wrote this sensible article for the LA Times.

So-called reformers have advocated their view that the way to improve schools is to fire “bad” teachers. The way they would identify “bad” teachers is by whether the test scores of students went up or down or stayed flat. Reformers seldom acknowledged that test scores reflect family income far more than teacher quality.

This hunt for bad teachers has proved fruitless, as scores have misidentified good and bad teachers, good teachers are demoralized by an idiotic way of evaluating their work, and there are teacher shortages now in many districts, as good teachers leave and the pipeline of new teachers has diminishing numbers.

Linda Darling-Hammond once memorably said, “You can’t fire your way to Finland.”

Karin Klein agrees.

One day, when the current era of test-based evaluation is evaluated, reformers will be held accountable for the damage they have done to teachers, students, and public education. That day will come.

Teachers need help and support to become better teachers.

There is no waiting line of great teachers searching for a job.

School districts must work with the teachers they have, making sure they are encouraged and mentored. And paid well.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching

North Carolina Teacher to Legislators: I Don’t Want Your Bonus!

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2016 //
16

Stuart Egan, National Board Certified Teacher in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, learned that he was entitled to a bonus of $2,000 for the students in his AP classes who passed their exams. He doesn’t want the money. He needs the money, but he won’t take it. After taxes, he will donate it to his school, which is under-resourced, like many in the state. In this post, he explains why.

Behind the bonus, he writes, is a lack of respect for all public school teachers.

Here are three good reasons he doesn’t want the bonus:

1. I do not need a carrot stick. If getting a bonus to get students to perform better really works, then this should have been done a long time ago. But it does not. I do not perform better because of a bonus. I am not selling anything. I would like my students and parents to think that I work just as hard for all of my students in all of my classes because I am a teacher.

2. This creates an atmosphere of competition. I did not get into teaching so that I could compete with my fellow teachers and see who makes more money, but rather collaborate with them. Giving some teachers a chance to make bonuses and not others is a dangerous precedent.

3. I did not take those tests. The students took the tests. Sometimes I wish that I could take the tests for them, but if you are paying me more money to have students become more motivated, then that is just misplaced priorities. These students are young adults. Some vote; most drive; many have jobs; many pay taxes. They need to be able to harness their own motivation, and hopefully I can couple it with my motivation.

Stuart’s response reminds me of something Albert Shanker once said about merit pay: “You mean that students will work harder if teachers are offered an incentive? How does that work?”

Categories Merit pay, North Carolina, Teacher Pay

Economic Policy Institute: Teacher Pay Gap Grows Larger, Especially for Experienced Teachers

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2016 //
20

The Economic Policy Institute is one of the few D.C.-based think tanks that is not indebted to billionaires. It is decidedly liberal and supports workers, fairness, equity, and unions.

Its latest study, by Sylvia Allegretto and Lawrence Mishel, shows that teacher pay has fallen behind comparable workers.

Here is the summary:

What this report finds: The teacher pay penalty is bigger than ever. In 2015, public school teachers’ weekly wages were 17.0 percent lower than those of comparable workers—compared with just 1.8 percent lower in 1994. This erosion of relative teacher wages has fallen more heavily on experienced teachers than on entry-level teachers. Importantly, collective bargaining can help to abate this teacher wage penalty. Some of the increase in the teacher wage penalty may be attributed to a trade-off between wages and benefits. Even so, teachers’ compensation (wages plus benefits) was 11.1 percent lower than that of comparable workers in 2015.

Why this matters: An effective teacher is the most important school-based determinant of education outcomes. It is therefore crucial that school districts recruit and retain high-quality teachers. This is particularly difficult at a time when the supply of teachers is constrained by high turnover rates, annual retirements of longtime teachers, and a decline in students opting for a teaching career—and when demand for teachers is rising due to rigorous national student performance standards and many locales’ mandates to shrink class sizes. In light of these challenges, providing adequate wages and benefits is a crucial tool for attracting and keeping the teachers America’s children need.

Reformers insist on merit pay, performance pay, differential pay, bonuses for test scores, and signing bonuses for high SAT scores posted years earlier. What they do not support is overall improvement in teachers’ salaries.

80% of the teaching force is female. Does sexism play a part?

Categories Teacher Pay

Eunice Han: How Teachers’ Unions Raise Teacher Quality and Student Achievement

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2016 //
22

In this post, EduShyster interviews Eunice Han, an economist who earned her Ph.D. at Harvard University and is now headed for the University of Utah.

Dr. Han studied the effects of unions on teacher quality and student achievement and concluded that unionization is good for teachers and students alike.

This goes against the common myth that unions are bad, bad, bad.

Han says that “highly unionized districts actually fire more bad teachers.”

And more: It’s pretty simple, really. By demanding higher salaries for teachers, unions give school districts a strong incentive to dismiss ineffective teachers before they get tenure. Highly unionized districts dismiss more bad teachers because it costs more to keep them.

Dr. Han found a natural experiment in the states that abolished collective bargaining.

Indiana, Idaho, Tennessee and Wisconsin all changed their laws in 2010-2011, dramatically restricting the collective bargaining power of public school teachers. After that, I was able to compare what happened in states where teachers’ bargaining rights were limited to states where there was no change. If you believe the argument that teachers unions protect bad teachers, we should have seen teacher quality rise in those states after the laws changed. Instead I found that the opposite happened. The new laws restricting bargaining rights in those four states reduced teacher salaries by about 9%. That’s a huge number. A 9% drop in teachers salaries is unheard of. Lower salaries mean that districts have less incentive to sort out better teachers, lowering the dismissal rate of underperforming teachers, which is what you saw happen in the those four states. Lower salaries also encouraged high-quality teachers to leave the teaching sector, which contributed to a decrease of teacher quality.

Send this link to Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, and any other reformers you can think of.

Categories Accountability, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Tulsa: Gist Raises Salaries for Administrators, Not for Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2016 //
7

You may remember Deborah Gist, who was previously Superintendent of Schools in Rhode Island, where she approved the mass firing of all the staff at Central Falls High School and became a hero of the corporate reform movement. TIME magazine named her one of the most important people of 2010 for her “courage” in firing so many educators at once.

Gist is now superintendent of schools in Tulsa and a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change. She recently announced a massive reorganization that involved firings, pay raises, pay cuts, but no pay raises for teachers.

Needless to say, teachers were not happy.

[Gist] said the district eliminated 175 jobs and created 73 new ones – some at higher, some at lower salaries – but, overall, the change, she said, will shift almost $4 million back into schools.

But the head of the teachers union, Patti Ferguson Palmer, complains about the priorities of the spending.

“The teachers are going to have extra students in their classrooms. We, of all people, get that people deserve more money when they take on more responsibility…When so many of these people were already making six figures, and they’re getting a raise…to someone making $32,000, $33,000, and their kids are on food stamps, it makes it look like they’re not appreciated,” she said.

The swing in salaries was, in some cases, more than $20,000 up and down.

Gist said no amount of saving on the administrative side would significantly change teachers’ salaries, but the changes made so far would make a dent in savings.

“In all these cases, it’s resulting many millions of dollars in savings for Tulsa Public Schools,” she said.

Categories Oklahoma, Teacher Pay
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