Betsy Hammond
Feds insist on giving Oregon millions more to pay for high-performing teachers
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2011/04/feds_insist_on_giving_oregon_m.html
4/18/2011
Topic: Teacher salaries
A group called the Chalkboard Project was awarded $13 million to improve the quality of teacher for a few Oregon school districts. Federals have urged the group to apply for more money, and the group gained another $11 million to pay for high-performing educators.
Key point: each school district will design their own way of determining who qualifies as high-performing teacher,
Relevance: There is financial hope! (if you are deemed worthy of being a good teacher). What does high-performance mean? Teacher’s who get their student’s to score high on tests? Does that really mean they are worthy of the bonus? Sounds to me like this might cause more damage than good. But we shall see…
This will be an interesting thing to keep an eye on! It dovetails well with the VAA that Jeff keeps us updated on from the LA Times. In this case, the huge difference is that "each school district, in collaboration with its teachers union, will design its own methods for determining what constitutes top-notch performance by its educators and how the financial rewards should be structured, Chalkboard officials say."
ReplyDeleteIn collaboration with its teachers union! That is incredible. Especially with a number of different districts going for the money, we might end up with a real, valid alternative to standardized test scores for teacher performance analysis (at least as it pertains to the awarding of monetary incentives).
From that point, maybe we can begin to answer the question we were rolling around the other day of just how one should best evaluate a teacher in a way that is fair to everyone. Let's keep an eye on this!
The only thing that gives me hope about this article is that it shows collaboration between the union and the man.
ReplyDeleteThere's no question in my mind that good teachers should be paid better than poor or checked out teachers, but I struggle with the right way to evaluate teachers--especially across disciplines. Collaboration with a group of people designed to protect teachers rights could yield positive results.
This reminds me of the story we heard in the psychology of learning class one of the first days, where a teacher would take a survey or write about why they deserved (or maybe why the other teacher's didn't deserve) the bonus. I agree with Jeff,I could not think any way to evaluate teachers and decide who gets more money. With things like this, there will always be somebody left unsatisfied.
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