The surge in Charlotte-area charter schools means competition not only for students, but for teachers.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has long been trying to craft a new type of pay scale that would entice and keep talented instructors. Project LIFT is taking the lead, rolling out new classroom leadership posts next year in four of the westside CMS schools it encompasses. Teachers tapped for those positions will earn up to $23,000 a year extra for continuing to teach while overseeing colleagues.
But one charter school director says the emphasis on testing in traditional public schools, particularly as it is used to rate and pay teachers, gives her a better shot at recruiting faculty.
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| Warner |
"With the pendulum where it's going, great teachers are going to fly out of the classroom," she predicted.
North Carolina's charters are required to give students the same state exams as other public schools, and they get the same school ratings based on those scores. Warner said she doesn't have a problem with that, but believes those tests shouldn't be allowed to dominate the school year.
Unlike other public schools, charters don't have to use the state's teacher pay scale. That could mean higher pay, though charters have to work with roughly the same public money that other schools get. Warner said at her school the paycheck isn't the draw. "I think every teacher deserves to make at least $60,000 a year," she said. "We're at about half that."
Charters also aren't bound by tenure, a move the state legislature is considering for all public schools. "Great teachers don't need tenure," said Warner, "and bad teachers don't deserve it."
Meanwhile, CMS leaders say they're eager to work with the state on crafting better ways to evaluate and pay teachers. The teachers who have been advising them are enthusiastic about creating classroom leadership jobs that bring extra pay for extra leadership and proven skills. But Superintendent Heath Morrison and the board said part of the problem is that base pay in North Carolina is just too low. Unless there's more money to work with, some said, performance pay and career ladders won't be enough. Morrison said CMS will by lobbying for "strategic compensation" coupled with an overall pay hike.
That last part may be a tough sell to cost-conscious legislators.
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15 comments:
1. I already left.
2. Every teacher deserves $60k. I've heard that since the early 70's. It doesn't pay the bills.
3. We pay half of that (60k). Wow, let me get two part-time jobs and move to Davidson to savor that the qualities of a quaint little college town a teacher can't afford to live in.
4. If anyone really desires to teach, remember who really cares for your well-being. The NC General Assembly. Enough said.
I find such a credibility gap between what this person says and what my friend was told at their interview with a charter. First they were told they pay only for people's BA degree and nothing for more training and years' of experience. So all teachers are paid as beginners. So why would great teachers fly out of CMS to a charter? Who could afford to?Further, this nonsense about more inovation, being part of the process,etc; my friend was told it is their way or the highway with more restrictions than CMS ever thought of...the emphasis was on whatever works faster such as disciple rather than mediation.
So be you a teacher or a parent, be careful, very careful and thorough if you choose a charter.
I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWERS....
...but would like to know.
North Carolina ranks 42nd in teacher pay. That's an easy number to get.
What I'd like to see are two sets of numbers for 2010-11 or later.
1.) Where Mecklenburg ranks in teacher pay compared by all U.S. districts. There are about 15,000 school superintendents in the U.S.
2.) Where Mecklenburg ranks in 12 year graduation rates for those districts in question #1.
I really don't think pay matters for state-to-state comparisons. Locality to locality makes better sense.
Bolyn McClung
Pineville
Bolyn,
Locality vs. locality makes sense only if you include neighboring state data. I teach in CMS, but I have the option of going just over the border to Fort Mill for instance.
Charters are simply meeting demand created by a flawed CMS system. Change the bell schedule and you have folks who dont like it they leave for Charters/Private schools. Don't have a superintendant for 1.8 years and no direction and Charters again win. Have high teacher turn over , becuase you dont care about them and familes choose Charters. Frankly , if CMS chooses not to care and we get more Charters in all areas of town you can put up your fences and add the gauge wire on top with electricity. The kids that dont want to learn will be the CMS kids and the rest of the kids will be in Charters. Not sure CMS realizes how close they are to this type of situation or if Heath is used to it from Reno?
She doesn't state the obvious. She can recruit teachers easily because they have only a certain clientele of students...an exclusive clientele. Teachers that run to charters are not interested in teaching all children, just a certain few...those who can afford to provide transportation to the charter. But don't talk about charters in such a way, it is taboo.
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THERE’S AN OBSERVER CONTEST ON SATURDAYS TITLED “I’M SO CLEVER.”
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The persons in North Carolina who established charters should have won that contest. Charters are all about clever uses of resource dollars. That’s not to say the public schools run by public employees (PSPE) aren’t clever. They are. Their options are just plain terrible. Let me give you just one.
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Thanks to the Leandro case, the General Assembly recognizes that some counties aren’t able to provide much of a local supplement. Some counties have low population. Some have low wealth. Quite a few are both. The remedy is the state provides those areas with more funding. That is reasonable.
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Well guess what? If you look at a Mecklenburg County map like the one in the 2012 Quality of Life Report, you will see that our urban area is made up of pockets of low wealth much greater than the officially recognized poverty counties. Yet, CMS doesn’t get the low wealth funding.
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CMS joined the Leandro suit to get recognition for this situation. Results: ZERO. CMS now uses a local funding formula that allocates 30% more per child in our unique low wealth areas. These should be the State’s responsibility but now belong to Ballantyne, the lake communities and the urban wealthy. This shift of funds benefits the sales pitch for the charters. Charters will never have to send their funds to a low wealth school.
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I’ve watched the School Board struggle with these competitive edges held by the charters. Each is substantial…..particularly those whispered advantages like not having poverty students whose families show-up in 21” chromed rim SUVs.
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I was at the Meck Ed meetings where the charter schools were presented. I didn’t get the impression being a charter school was easy. They were specific about what teachers had to give-up to come to a charter...and…what they gained. All I saw was the same people as in CMS but who all were thriving because of their wits and a general relief that they didn’t live under the thumb of a central office.
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And there you have it. When charters were created, someone should have been clever enough to see that eventually the 115 central offices would have to change once the charter movement proved successful. Maybe they did. In any case, now is the time to begin. There is no way every public school run by public employees can become a charter, but it is possible to redesign central office administrations in the mold of a charter.
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Bolyn McClung
Pineville
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You can begin today paying all 9,000 CMS teachers $10,000 more per year over the next 5 years and it won't improve anything other than the teacher's bank account.
The notion of paying teachers more money equating to students learning is ridiculous.
The NC average salary for teachers should be increased, no doublt about it, but this notion that LIFT is "leading the way" is just dumb.
LIFT is throwing away more money than Jerry Orr's drunken sailors at the airport. To compare LIFT to the rest of CMS and other schools in the state is like trying to compare apples to onions.
In its latest effort to improve public schools with private money, Project LIFT has awarded almost $300,000 in grants to teachers in the nine west Charlotte schools that are targeted for change.
The grants range from $1,500 for an elementary school science fair to $30,000 for efforts such as a student trip to Washington, D.C., and a program to help parents understand mental health issues. Eighteen teachers in Project LIFT schools received grants.
Eighteen teachers at an average cost of $16,667 each.
$16,667 dollars in grants for each CMS teacher would cost $150,003,000.
STOP using LIFT as the saviour of public education.
When our child took a field trip in elementary school to D.C., parents had to raise funds to send them.
LIFT is pulling funding it promise to the partners so it can pay for the year schools. maybe that is where these teacher grants come from too.
Are any charters paying $70,000. for elementary phys ed teachers?
Morrison and the BofE
FALSE PROPHETS
good point, would any charter school pay $60-70K for an Art or PE teacher? Never. And they probably are able to have art and PE twice a week. Doubt they will start classes at 7:15 or 7:30am either.
Hurray for more educational choices for area parents.
More and more smoke and mirrors
The name of the Super changes and they just continue to pull the levers in OZ
Give the Damn Teachers a RAISE
Heath will continue to make the argument that unless the state finds a pile of money to hike teacher pay, his hands are tied. Meanwhile, he'll continue with the status quo, which will mean teacher performance will be irrelevant to a teacher's pay.
You can expect Heath to have no plans to reform teacher pay, tenure and recruitment policies in any significant way. If you are a tenured teacher who has been at CMS for a decade or two, this is probably good news. However, if you are a young college graduate who wants to make a living wage as a teacher, CMS is probably not the place for you.
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