March Delegate Assembly Notes...

... removed at the request of the author. Contact Teachers for a Just Contract for a copy: JustContractUFT@aol.com

I preserved the comments:

NYC Educator said...
It sounds surreal. The whole 55/25 thing was touted as a great victory if only we would accept the 05 contract with the sixth class, the longer day and year, the permanent building assignment, the inability to grieve LIFs, the right to unpaid suspension based on hearsay evidence, and essentially giving back every single professional gain we'd earned since I began teaching.

And we were told the reason we didn't even get cost of living for that was our noble refusal to reduce rookie salaries.

Then we found we also had to take merit pay. And then we found that we would indeed reduce rookie salaries by 1.8% for up to 27 years.

And no one told us that NYSUT has a 55/25 bill with no penalty for anyone either.

That Ms. Weingarten and her patronage mill would support the "for profit" designation and merger is simply unconscionable. Her remarks that she does not know what will happen indicate the obvious--she doesn't care what will happen.

No wonder she thinks leading the largest teacher union in the country is a part time job.


Socratic method:
I don't understand the objection to merit pay. Can someone please explain it? It seems like merit pay is a good way to get more money into the hands of the good teachers, and out of the hands of the people who you say shouldn't have ever been granted tenure.

Anonymous
Socrates, I teach in Florida where there is merit pay. Here, It is based solely on children's tests scores and gives an unfair advantage to the teachers in better areas or with the "top" kids.
It is unfair!
We need to unite for additional funds for ALL teachers!

Anonymous said...
If there is merit pay, why would any teacher take a chance and teach a difficult class? It's much easier to go to a wealthier neighborhood where virtually all the kids will pass and say how brilliant you are as a teacher.


Socrates :
Well, those are two very narrow notions of merit pay. If merit pay were based on more than just test scores, and if the part that was just based on test scores was based on gains rather than absolute scores, you'd see everyone signing up to teach the lower classes in the poorest neighborhoods.

ed notes online
1. Name some factors beyond test scores.
2. If based on gains - kids learn at different rates. Or attendance factors? Or some special ed kids? Or disruptive behavior problems? What about losses - say a kid is absent 100 days - should the salary be cut?
3. As we've pointed out - it is not whether a school is good or bad and whether merit pay will attract teachers to a school -- what about all the private school and Catholic school teachers in NYC who are lower paid -- just go to a public school and get higher pay and more benefits - few seem to do it. Why not if money would attract these teachers (who must be superior because I bet their scores are high)?

Socratic Method
1. Rubric-based principal evaluations, peer evaluations, and/or 3rd party evaluations. I'm sure smarter people than I could come up with lots of others.

2. I'm not recommending that any one factor constitute the entirety of the merit-pay evaluation. And nothing will be exactly perfect and free of defects, but just about anything will be better than the current system. The system could be fine-tuned, but yes, special ed kids probably learn slower, so adjustments to the amount of gains required for a bonus could be made. Plus, if the evaluations listed in #1 came back really positive but the group of kids happened to be particularly hard to move, the other measured factors besides the test scores should reflect that.
3. Merit pay isn't the whole answer, but it's part of the answer. Discipline needs to be improved, for sure, but great teachers can handle just about any discipline problem, so do what it takes to attract such people to the toughest schools. I'll tell you what doesn't attract such people: the knowledge that they'll have to toil away next to someone who does no work but gets more money by account of them being older.

ed notes online
It's not only not a partial answer, it is a negative. Smater people thanyou HAVE NOT been able to come up with something - what's been holding them back?

So private and Catholic schools give merit pay?

What's better than the current pay system - which by the way is in operation for the police force and many other municipal services - do you think you will be safer if cops get merit pay?

Try an experiement. Lower class sizes in a bunch of places and pay merit pay in another. The merit pay kids might even score higher on the narrow high stakes tests. See which group of kids get the broadest based education with the most knowledge.

And are you talking about a serious chunk of change like they are giving principals for getting high scores? how is that merit system working out by the way? Ask principals behind closed doors and many of them laugh.