Comments on: Rock Star Pay for Rock Star Teachers Part Trois

By: JB Haglund

JB Haglund — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:34:41 +0000

“ongoing value added assessment.” That is a fancy phrase but what does it really mean? Education has a habit of making up fancy phrases to cover up vagaries of the profession or to make things sound important that really aren’t. If you mean a system of data for each student that teachers can constantly access and that is based on common assessments so that they can focus on raising scores in certain areas, sure that’s nice, but as the mechanism for determining which teachers are good and which aren’t, it has some glaring flaws.

At some point, someone will have to actually stand up and admit that some of the most important things that good teachers do cannot be measured by a test. They can be measured by other great teachers or administrators that are actually educators.

I think that data gathering and assessment is a good part of successful schooling. Teaching kids certain skills is important. Somehow pointing to it as a holy grail that will show us who is good and who is bad at teaching is dangerous. There are too many other important factors that need to be factored in.

By: matthewladner

matthewladner — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:25:07 +0000

I agree with you Greg. From the standpoint of recruiting kids in college into the profession, the lack of an upside for outstanding performance is very damaging.

By: Kathleen Kullback

Kathleen Kullback — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:13:13 +0000

I’ll keep on keeping on as an overqualified, underpaid charter teacher with 45 days off during the summer if I continue to feel appreciated by administrators, colleagues, parents and students. Too many of my friends have been non-renewed by poorly trained administrators just when they reach probationary level (most have over 10 years of experience and MAs)and are looking for work in a weak job market.

By: Greg Forster

Greg Forster — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:28:41 +0000

Well, the problem isn’t “low” pay so much as pay not being aligned to performance. Right now the great teachers are badly underpaid, the mediocre teachers are paid about right, and the lousy teachers are overpaid (by 100%).

By: matthewladner

matthewladner — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:23:09 +0000

Oakleynagels-

I agree. A wise man once told me that every system is perfectly designed to produce the results associated with it.

By: oakleynagels

oakleynagels — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:18:40 +0000

Security and “summers” off are a trade-off for the low salary. I will gladly sell my tenure for a $40,000 raise, and I’ll work 50 weeks a year if you pay me (and other potential teachers) a salary that will attract the top-third of college students away from law schools, med schools, engineering careers, etc. But if you’re going to start teachers at $30K, you have to 1) accept low quality professionals, and 2) compensate them with security and “summer” (which is in quotes because for me “summer” is from June 15th to August 20th). You get what you pay for.

By: JB Haglund

JB Haglund — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:16:55 +0000

There are loads of people in and around most school districts that get paid very well and have absolutely zero impact on what is happening in the classroom on a daily basis. I don’t know that I could count on two hands the people in our district (nothing like the size of the one mentioned in Nevada) who make well over 100K a year that have absolutely zero impact on student learning/experience/etc.

But for now, I am just going to be glad I have summers off, keep doing nothing to deserve any merit, and hope for the best!

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:10:39 +0000

Here in Nevada, the state’s largest school district (which has a budget of $4.1 billion and roughly 300,000 students) employs 32,000 FTE (full time worker equivalent). That is 1 full time employee for every 10 students (its actually 9.3 students when counting the full time student equivalent which is an apples to apples comparison). The second largest school district Washoe County has about 60,000 students and it employs 1 full time worker for every 9 students.

Then, my colleague Geoff (our economist) goes on TV to talk about the state budget and he’s sat next to this union lady who goes on telling Geoff how we don’t know what its like in the classrooms because she’s in the classrooms and we have 50 students to a classroom (I seriously doubt that) but as you said – what are they doing with all that revenue?

If she’s right (she’s clearly not) and we know the district employs 1 worker for every 10 students but students are in classrooms of 50 that means we have a lot of people who aren’t even teachers. No wonder Clark County’s graduation rate is 63 percent (but hey, at least they beat UNLV – 39 percent)