The Little Rock (Arkansas) School District had offered a proposal in which teachers would vote to be eligible for merit pay increases and as much as a $10,000.00 bonus; the proposal was soundly defeated. The proposal was to have served as a pilot program for whether a bonus or merit pay proposal for teachers is even feasible. The school’s administration embraced the idea; the teachers evidently did not think so highly of the proposal. So is it a fair question to ask why teachers would turn down a chance at making more money and getting a $10,000.00 bonus to boot especially when all we seem to hear about is how poorly teachers are paid? In this case, yes. The answer, however, comes from the teachers themselves and demands our full attention.
The vote and “letters to the editor” feedback from the state’s teachers indicate that there is a fundamental objection to the entire proposal for only one reason: the merit pay and bonuses would be directly related to how well students perform on a standardized test.
Letters from teachers told the story very well, and their perspective is a must for any legislator or school administrator if these people truly have the children’s best interests and education at heart. The teachers, in order to qualify for the merit pay and bonuses, would be hamstrung to the standardized tests that the students would have to do well on. In short, the teachers would not feel so free to teach the students HOW to think but, rather, WHAT to think. "Teaching the test", as they say.
The teachers have a point, of course. Children have to be taught how to reason and how to think. The conclusions they reach, based on information not only given to but also processed in their little minds may not always be dead-on correct, but credit must also be given where latitude can be allowed. Two plus two will always equal four and this will never change, but simply memorizing this formula without the reasoning required to come to the only conclusion is perhaps more important than the correct answer itself.
Teachers have to be accountable to parents for the jobs they do, but I don’t think they have a problem with this although as a parent I’ve been forced to contend with a certain level of arrogance that I thought to be highly inappropriate and undeserved. The teachers I know personally, however, are not afraid of a challenge, and they have no fear of accounting for how they spend their days.
Of course there are bad teachers. There are some lazy teachers, there are some mean teachers, none of whom have any business being in their profession. There must be some equitable and reasonable way to weed these people out. By the same token, there must also be an equitable way by which those who are truly dedicated to what they consider to be their calling to be rewarded. These professionals deserve to be rewarded just as any of us in the secular working world would expect to be rewarded for going above and beyond expectations.
I still stand by what I have maintained all along. Money alone is not going to solve the education problem even though there are government people who have somehow become convinced that pumping more money into an unsolved problem will somehow make the problem disappear. It would almost appear as though these legislators and school administrators received the same kind of education they are trying to hand off to our children.
3 comments:
Jason,
I would love to see a campaign's finances broken down so that we could all see where the bulk of the cash comes from. Sadly, we've reached a point where money is what does all the talking. One positive perspective on this is that money means support exists.
Something else I would like to see is a law that stipulates that only money coming from within the state can legally be used by that state's candidate. Of course, national PAC's have an interest in a congressman or a senator, but these persons who choose to run have to remember to whom they should be accountable. Too much outside influence gives a very unfair advantage to an incumbent.
Good post.
I think you're right; throwing money at a problem is not going to be a viable solution. My mom is a third grade teacher here in Missouri, so there may be a few polity differences between our two states. However, her biggest problem is apathetic or unavailable parents. She's been teaching for nearly 30 years and every year she sees more single parent households and the age of the parents get younger and younger (and that's not because she's getting older, as she reminds me.)
I think our declining level of education in comparison to other nations is not due to a colapse of the education system in and of itself, but is simply an indication of much greater problems in American culture: the family, the business community, and the religious community. Liek so many other problems, we need to figure out how to turn off the running spigot before we try to frantically mop up the spill.
According to the Arkansas Supreme Court, the state has fallen far short of "equitable" as education goes. One affluent spends roughly $7800 per child, but a rural district only has $4500 per child. That alone says there is a real problem in equitable distribution. What I'm afraid will happen when the legislature convenes, possibly next week, is that they will determine that money is the only answer. It's all they've done in the past.
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