The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board will get an update on the talent effectiveness project tonight, with a target of making decisions this spring about how to pilot new teacher ratings in 2012-13.
It was just about a year ago that news of the district's expanded testing program broke. Anxiety among teachers was high, as CMS official Andy Baxter visited schools trying to explain new value-added ratings based on test scores. Then-Superintendent Peter Gorman fueled further outrage when state representatives introduced a bill his staff had helped draft that would allow CMS to launch performance pay without teacher approval.
Since then Gorman has departed, the bill is on hold and the folks who remain are trying to hit "reset" on the effort. CMS is still using the additional tests, and leaders still plan to replace the current pay scale, based on experience and credentials, with one based on student results and other measures of performance. But they're trying to do a better job of listening to teachers and building buy-in for the changes.
Is it working? I'm not hearing the angst that I was this time last year. But it's hard to know if that's because teachers are happier, or just because it's not a front-burner item.
At tonight's meeting, teachers who have been working with CMS to craft better measures of effectiveness will report. The board won't take action, but anyone who's interested can attend the meeting, turn on CMS-TV 3 or watch online. (There's a budget meeting beforehand, and if experience is any guide, that could mean a late start to the 6 p.m. business meeting.)
As always, the electronic floor is open for discussion.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
CMS teacher ratings: What's the buzz?
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33 comments:
Read the presentation. Student performance is not included as a measure of teacher effectiveness. Some would say it is the only measurement that really matters.
DON'T CONFUSE THE TEP PRESENTATION TONIGHT WITH THE EARLIER IN THE DAY BUDGET WORKSHOP
TEP evaluations are many years away unless someone is willing to put them on a community dividing PfP pace.
The budget workshop is dealing with the dream of a locally funded pay raise.
There has never been a time in North Carolina General Assembly history since 1974 that there were two consecutive years without a pay raises.....except for the last years. This is a sorry trend that is going to be difficult to break.
Bolyn McClung
Pineville
Teachers are not happy. They're underpaid, salaries have been frozen with no pay raises for 4 years, no transfers allowed... then they slap them with a biased pay for performance grading scale to measure their performance. CMS creates an unhealthy and unhappy work environment.
@Anonymous (2/14/12 7:17 AM) Student performance is a measure; the value-added model is a measure of student growth. It simply is not one of the five measures being presented at tonight's board meeting. The remaining four measures - including Value-Added - will be presented on 2/28.
NO FISCAL IMPLICATIONS?
David Pollack's clarification caused me to go to tonight's agenda.
It was interesting that under the subheading instructing the board if there are any "Fiscal Implications", the notation is "None"
Somebody missed a great opportunity for a little humor......or maybe that was it.
Bolyn McClung
Pineville
Whatever CMS wants to do with PfP or TEP, is irrelevant, period. Current state law prevents them from doing anything without a teacher vote.
Administration, starting with St. Pete, continuing through the Right Reverend Baxter, Dr. Bunnyfarmer, and others, have utterly and completely lost the war to get people to buy into what they are selling.
HB 546 is dead, even with the new lobbyist for project LIFT skulking about Raleigh.
Take the money pit that is the Accountability department, cut it off and return the funds to the classroom where they belong.
Get CMS back into the business of educating children.
The buzz is that if PfP or whatever name they call it is pushed down teachers throats, there will be problems. The district under Dr. Gorman missed their opportunity. When he forwarded HB546 he sealed PfP's fate. He threw his dice and he lost. The truth is as the above poster stated. The state is driving the train at this point. They are all going through the motions to satisfy their grant. Once that is gone, so will PfP chatter.
Why raise a ruckus when: a. there's a new Super on the way who may think this is all hooey (not likely as the BOE is totally infatuated with this "new-fangled idear") and b. not much has been done yet, really. It is insulting that millions are being spent on something that hasn't even been approved--just assuming it's going to happen, but at the same time asking for raises? You can't have it both ways CMS--sorry. I'm a teacher and I wouldn't mind a raise as I have been stuck for several years now, but you can't tell everyone that our new PFP or whatever the name is now system is going to be great and then go asking for monies--why not spend the monies you have better, stop chasing all the shiny, new-fangled, trends like a bunch of crazed ferrets and just let people teach---I can almost guarantee that if the State were to reinstitute the steps with a modest increase--we'd be good. As there is not a SINGLE shred of evidence to prove that PFP has any impact on performance, while there is plenty of evidence to the contrary--the continued pursuit is really making CMS look even more ridiculous.
I suppose the greater question is: will Rev. Andy Baxter be held accountable for his actions if PfP fails? We now know there is a mounting tidal wave of evidence to indicate the PfP in schools does not yield better results. New York, Colorado, Illinois and a host of other states have tried, but in vain and large waste of taxpayer money. Get rid of the learning zones, that Pete set up to shield himself from accountability, put those folks back in the classroom and reign in student behavior. If you set your goals high and enforce them you might be surprised how well CMS can do.
CMS Teacher Effectiveness project will be disbanded and so will CMS created summative assessments (except fine arts and world languages) in favor of using state measures. Just emailed to CMS employees ahead of tonight's meeting.
Break up CMS into three smaller, more effective school districts. Sign the petition here:
www.change.org/petitions/the-north-carolina-state-legislature-pilot-program-divide-cms-into-3-districts-each-with-own-taxing-authority
It's time for people to stand up and have their voices heard. Massive and bloated administrative kingdoms that steal money from ALL classrooms and do more to damage than to help the education of our children is a major problem that must be fixed.
Doesn't common sense lead one to believe that teacher performance pay should be an incentive program?
Let's say you teach 3rd grade. At the beginning of the year (an appropriate time for a standardized test) kids are tested. At the end of the year, kids are tested. A teacher's job is to help kids achieve AT LEAST 1 year of growth in 1 school year.
How about a comp plan that has perhaps 4 or 5 steps - matters not if you have a masters degree or are national board certified - and at each step there are performance bonuses available. Achieve 1 year growth get X bonus. Get kids to grow 1.25 years get Y bonus. 1.5 years growth earns Z bonus.
Seems pretty easy to me. May have to do something like eliminate some sort of outlier (especially on the negative side b/c of things outside of the control of the teacher - say family issues, problems at home, identified learning disabilities etc that could unfairly and negatively affect what would be high performance of normal/average kids in a class).
Then you have a plan that rewards high performance. If we had anyone in CMS with a lick of business sense or experience, this type of plan would have already been proposed. Incentives/rewards drive behavior. Oh, and common sense works pretty well too.
Ann, Your post states "leaders still plan to replace the current pay scale, based on experience and credentials, with one based on student results and other measures of performance. But they're trying to do a better job of listening to teachers and building buy-in for the changes."
You are an intelligent person. Why write such a deceitful post?
A better journalist would at least question whether pay-for-performance will ever see the light of day under the new BOE. The majority of board members are now Democrats, a political party that has battled local school reform efforts for decades all across America, especially those that involve PfP.
Do you really think that by February 2013 or 2014, CMS will have any kind of real PfP program instead of the current pay-for-days-on-the-job scheme? The only way that would happen would be if the state legislature mandated it. In your post, you don't even mention that CMS will soon choose a new superintendant, at which time the current direction of PfP is likely to change.
Are you a journalist or an ideologue?
Splitting CMS into thirds will not happen and there could no cost saving but INCREASED costs as other splits have incurred.
Post your facts to backup your points:
• Lower overall per pupil cost
• Higher levels of accountability for voters and taxpayers
• Local control of schools back to the voters/taxpayers/parents in each of the new, smaller districts
• Increased percentage of monies spent in the classroom
• Smaller, more responsive administration
• Improved academic performance and graduation rates
Also, Mecklenburg County gives CMS less than 30% of its budget monies.
Wiley,
Prove that splitting the district into smaller districts will not do as those folks are saying.
Anon 8:04...
This happened to a school district in Utah who tried the same thing a few years back...
Utah's youngest school district will observe its first birthday on Thursday. But one year after Canyons was born through a bitter split with Jordan School District, it's unclear whether students -- or taxpayers -- on either side are better off.
The divorce broke up Utah's largest school district -- 81,000 students in the south Salt Lake Valley -- and created the first new school district in 100 years. The process, an east-side vote that excluded west-side Jordan residents and left them with less money per pupil, sparked resentment on both sides that still festers.
The breakup alone cost taxpayers $33 million, according to a Salt Lake Tribune analysis done in 2009. The tab included $3 million in legal fees paid by both sides, the cost of hiring people to run Canyons and the expense of relocating Jordan's central offices.
So far, class sizes are no smaller, taxes are higher and there is less help for kids struggling to read in both districts. Both are dipping into construction funds to cover operating expenses, a fix offered by the Legislature that is available for only two years.
Years ago many states were trying to force smaller school districts into one big districts, ostensibly to save money. The school system I grew up in and similar small districts around it (in Cincinnati area) refused to do this. Today they continue to be strong, popular school districts (with taxing authority but taxes are raised only by vote of the community). They do not have to hire the layers of bureaucrats required to deal with the myriad of issues that come from having a very large, diverse, and disconnected school population. In addition teachers, principals, and superintendents tend to stay put, as there are not a lot of central office positions that they can jockey for. And perhaps they are content in positions where they have gotten to know their students and families over the years. Of course it is not nirvana, but on the other hand you don't read about every move of the school board or superintendent in the morning paper.
6:12, they're not disbanding Talent Effectiveness, but thanks much for the heads up. I've got the email now and am trying to figure out exactly what it means.
Ann,
Who is Beth Marshall, when and why did she leave CMS the first time?
Thanks....
From media release: Beth Anne Marshall was named executive director of Project L.I.F.T. She began her career with the Franklin School District, Franklin, Tennessee, in 1994 before moving to CMS in 1999, where she was a middle school teacher and reading specialist. From 2004-2006, Marshall taught at Queen’s Grant Community School in Mint Hill. She returned to CMS in 2007 and has worked as a principal intern, assistant principal and facilitator. In 2010, Franklin became principal of Jackson Park Elementary in Kannapolis.
Questions:
1. Why do band, art, dance, etc. need tests? Can't students have something that is enjoyable without having to be tested? I know, I know--the teachers have to be "evaluated", but seriously... really?
2. Why is a teacher responsible for kids who: could care less about school, skip, are absent, run away, have serious family issues, have more sex than porn stars, etc? How come a teacher's pay is impacted by the behaviors of kids?
Comment:
So, millions have been spent for... nothing now---now that CMS is going to use the State implemented exams and value added, etc, from NC and abandon their own measures--CMS just spent MILLIONS for... N-O-T-H-I-N-G.
Thanks...
5:52 - Pray tell how do you think Andy Baxter would be held accountable??
Seriously, all he ever said was
"I DON'T KNOW."
So why did we spend millions on testing,PfP and TEP? Why do we keep spending millions on this data collection and new administrative department? Why now all of sudden are we following DPI standards that CMS was going to have to follow anyway? This has been a severe mismanagement of time and more important,TAXPAYER MONEY. Many should follow the path of Cobitz and resign before a real investigation (or investigative journalist) shows rampant fraud and corruption. Follow the money!
How much has been spent so far on PfP and TEP? Please include the total spent on salaries of all the newly hired adminstrative support and PR department to sell it?
Thanks Ann in advance
The "buzz" must be what everyone in the ivory tower must be smoking. Can you believe they are shifting the chairs on the titanic again this soon.Must be a halucenagenic.
10:25... it's complete ineptness....
Pete must be laughing his cheeks off at the left-overs skating on a frozen wastewater pond with nowhere to go but down. An inquisition is long overdue but many of the roaches have slithered into new cabinets elsewhere.
You need to dig a little deeper on where Beth Marshall worked previously in CMS and with whom.
OK, had to come up for air. Beth Marshall was a facilitator at Spaugh under Denise Watts; I actually interviewed her in 2010 (but hadn't made the connection). Interesting to know, and interesting that CMS didn't put that in the release, though it doesn't seem particularly sinister. Anything I'm missing?
For those of you who think teachers should be judged on student performance - how am I suppose to teach a kid who comes late to class daily, never does their homeowrk, rarely finishes an assignment, and has no working phone number. This has been communicated to the school counselor numerous times. Oh, I know - I guess I am suppose to (after working my 12 hour day) hop in my car and risk my life to talk to the students parents.
Until you have shadowed a teacher with an at risk population of students - keep your mouth shut!! You have not idea what we go through in any given day. This comment is meant for all you ignorant people who think you know CMS schools, for the school board members (NEVER has one come to my school), and for the joke of a CMS accountability office - you have NO CLUE!
I have worked hard to achieve my advanced degree and national certification. I was led to believe that we should strive to improve ourselves and lead as an example of life long learners and now I'm concerned the step up in pay will be taken away or taxed as a " bonus" ( around 50%). I believe that CMS should recognize the hard working teachers, but with what extra money? On the other hand, it is frustrating to see another teacher continue at the same pay rate who you know is incompetent and/or is out every Friday, and copies their lesson plans from others and is out the door the second the last bell rings. There are quite a few. until we can trust our administration to observe and evaluate fairly, there will be the same issues.
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