The Wake County school board got a briefing Tuesday on the superintendent's plan to reward 25 percent of teachers with four-year contracts and $500-a-year raises.
The "25 percent rule," created by state legislators last summer, is part of a program to phase out career status, also known as tenure. It's posing challenges for districts across North Carolina as they try to figure out how to make it work. The biggest issue is choosing among teachers who meet the mandated requirements for three years' experience and proficient job evaluations.
Echoing a discussion by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board last month, Wake board members gave the state-mandated program thumbs down.
“This is a bad way for rewarding teachers,” said Wake board member Jim Martin, according to the News & Observer. “This is a bad way for just about everything.”
Wake's plan creates separate eligibility pools for each school, dealing with the concern that districtwide selection could leave some schools shortchanged. Wake also plans to ask eligible teachers whether they want to participate. That's a good question, given that accepting a four-year contract means voluntarily surrendering tenure. Some teachers say they'll refuse the contract and the raise if it's offered, and the N.C. Association of Educators is suing to protect tenure.
Once each school has a pool of eligible and willing teachers, selection will be done based on the highest job ratings in the past two years, with seniority as a tie-breaker.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools plans to unveil its plan later this month. The school board discussed issues and challenges at a December meeting (read the CMS presentation here).
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35 comments:
I like Wake's idea considering if the official contract is offered and not accepted, that contract does not get extended for another offer. If the teacher knows they will not accept it, then offer it to one who wants it.
"The taste of poor quality lingers long after the low price is forgotten."
In a country where Walmart and McDonalds rule, I wouldn't be so sure the majority of customers will care.
As long as the FRL program continues.
I'm waiting for a school district to throw up their hands and pass it back to the state with a "You figure out how to do it!" response.
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THE NUMBER ONE MISTAKE A BUSINESS CAN MAKE IS...
Messing with employee pay.
What is about to happen is the creation of a perception that labor cost can be controlled by rewarding the top. In this case it is that lower paid teachers will have an incentive to work harder. Maybe. But what is really happening is 75% of the work force feels it is being under paid.
And that brings-up probably the number one reason customers flee.
"The taste of poor quality lingers long after the low price is forgotten."
Let me rephrase. Parents of students who don't achieve will never say, "but weren't we lucky. It didn't cost as much as it could have!"
Bolyn McClung
Pineville
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Virtually any teacher can make $500 cash in one to two weekends in many part-time jobs. Why would anyone accept those conditions for that amount of chump change? One only has to survey how many teachers have already left CMS this year to see they're dangling a rotten carrot with no future.
This is a Tillis and Mcory mess... Typical neoconservatives at work...heavy handed government. Conservatives against Tillis..
Cue Merle Haggard……………..
Saturday, January 11: South Park Mall Food Court, 10 am-1 pm. Bring work to grade, wear your school pride gear, and publicly grade papers. A revolutionary act by raising awareness about a teacher's time "off the clock". Join us.
Honestly, nothing this school district does anymore makes sense to me, including the 2 hour delay (but I'm from Conn). I'm doing 5th grade homework with my son tonight and they have jumped ahead so far on the math curriculum it makes no sense to him. The teachers don't have time to spend teaching the basics anymore, and the students' work reflects it. I for one do not support the push for common core curriculum. Just ask your elementary student's teacher how many children are passing the exams, less than 25% at our "high performing" school.
8:14,
How could you schedule against the Magnet Fair
scrum at Phillip O. Berry? Be on the the watch for CMS communications and your image(s) in the next Direct Line and subsequent mark downs on your second unannounced observation.
As a parent of several CMS students, what happened to school events, Science Fairs, Musical performances, Mile run in PE?? And now the news that only 1-4 children/teens are considered physically fit, most are couch potatoes due to the increased technology and decreased parental involvement in their lives.
I agree with the previous poster, if this is the future with common curriculum please give us the "old" days back.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/08/physical-activity-adolescents/4342773/
USA Today story about Adolescents and fitness. Why have CMS middle schools done away with outside-physical fitness breaks? A little fresh air and physical fitness would do them, and the staff some good.
8:30, this is what the feds have brought to government run schools, formerly public education.
Help us start a campaign to get the feds out of our public schools. Yes, we will have to find a way to fund FRL for those who "truly" qualify, because we can check those, and we would need to find a way to fund Title I type stuff but I think it is all very doable if enough folks put their heads together. Too many educrats refuse to recognize the additional financial burden taking federal dollars puts on our schools. All this testing and Common Core mania has only grown non-schoolhouse staff and costs for our school system.
The federal bureaucracy is there to blame the schools and teachers for the failures of parents and students. Without it a whole lot of folks would be exposed as the dummies they truly are.
I believe one of the means by which federal control got a foothold in local schools was through the school lunch program--not just FRL but through subsidies for all lunches from the Ag Dept. In the early 70's I taught in the Richardson, Texas, school system. Richardson was home of Texas Instruments and the school system at that time was on great financial footing (may still be--haven't kept up). They refused all federal subsidies, yet were able to provide great student support at all levels, including a "Bright Beginnings" type of pre-school program, with a very focused selection process, twenty years before CMS began theirs. When busing first came into use as a desegregation tool, they were able to avoid having the feds get involved in the system (which was a good thing both for the system and the students since the one predominately black elementary school in the system was a strong neighborhood school with very focused attention on student success). Don't know what has happened since. I'm sure the system has grown considerably since then and I suspect they were not able to forever keep the feds from their door.
Teachers, what are your thoughts on this subject? why so quiet? The public/parents would like your comments and honesty.
Scenario:
If 50% of the top 25% of teachers decline to participate in the $500 bonus and the empty slots are then filled from those in the bottom 75% willing to accept $500 for their tenure how has the county chosen the top 25%?
The top 25% will not be the real top 25%.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/01/07/lead-pkg-ganim-college-sports-illiterates.cnn.html
Anon 1:44, I'll bite, I'm a teacher! It's insane and frankly insulting. I can make $500 in 10 hours of private tutoring. I am probably in the minority who could care less about tenure (I think it's ridiculous and my own hard work and performance is the only job security I need). But the $500? Dumb. Give us the steps you advertise and promised us when we took the job. Or if you've decided to do pay for performance, I'm cool (actually I prefer it) but do it right...$500 is a joke.
I have taught for 11 years. I have been in different states and different schools in CMS. I love to try new things and go different places. My evalutions have always been above par.... From what I have seen Common Core is a mess. The best schools are local schools with local school boards. Small town school systems, with local pride. I do not like the big countywide districts. To many chiefs. The simplest of task become difficult. The state intrusion just compounds the issues. There are so many assessments. As far as the Feds go, shutdown the department of education and send the tax money back to local schools and community's
The best form of protest a teacher has in this state, is their vote. Make sure Tillis and other teacher bashers are sent home.
So, the magnet fair is Saturday and nothing on bell schedules. I know some people on this blog do not care-but some do. Hey-here is an idea-make those going to magnets use the early bell!
Fair is fair!
Also, CMS can save the postage, I'd never put my TD son in the Shamrock magnet!
What could possibly go wrong with more federal control in the schools?
Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are pressing for less discipline in schools from their bully pulpits.
All because "minority" kids (especially blacks) are getting punished more.
And that's just not fair.
Of course, no one wants to check whether those minority kids being punished are behaving worse. Because that just might be embarrassing.
And someone might need to address their real problems.
It's just so much easier to label it discrimination and let the prison system handle the results when they get older.
Or maybe they'll claim discrimination then, too, because of "disparate impact".
Meanwhile, people who want safer and better disciplined schools are moving away from the mess any way they can.
And no one really wonders why anymore, do they?
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THE SOURCE OF MONEY IS THE PROBLEM.
Teachers are right to worry about continuation of the bonuses after the first year. There are two reasons.
#1. POLITICS
#2. TAXES
The state funds education on a tax system that depends on wildly fluctuating sales taxes. Sales taxes are the exact opposite of the counties stable base of property values. There is a good example of the danger to teachers in the state’s gas tax and fuel efficient cars.
When cars guzzled gasoline, more gallons were sold. More taxes came in. Spending on highway maintenance was healthy. But then came the fuel efficient cars requiring fewer gallons. Thus our highway use taxes decreased. Roads suffered.
Not if, but when there is another recession, state sales taxes on goods and services will decrease. Teachers’ pay will fall off a cliff.
The solution is a stable state-wide tax system to support education. It is the only way that teachers will believe promises from Raleigh.
Bolyn McClung
Pineville
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There is another form of protest.. Leave.. We just had a good English teacher leave last week for ATL.
Shamash, 5:42 PM, you have precisely hit the nail on the head why state and local politicians are hesitant to get aggressive with public education reform. First you have the feds playing their games including social engineering. Then you have all these educrats falling all over themselves to get money/blessings from Gates, Broad and others. The feds have their hands around the throat of government (formerly public) education.
On top of all of this, the feds have the NC budget in horrible shape with the big debt NC owes the feds for unemployment benefits extensions and and the ever increasing Medicaid expense burden.
So do not be surprised when the public demands more charter schools and less federal intrusion into their lives.
Support the move to eject the feds from our schools.
A $5,000 annual incentive/payout, maybe.
Anything less is insulting.
Here is an idea. PAY the PARENTS of students whose children score high on the state tests, have 95+% attendance and have NEVER been suspended from school. That solves everything that the Gov't is worried about!!!! AND puts the responsibility RIGHT where it BELONGS!!!!
1:52 PM
Lol. That's exactly the kind of "higher order" thinking question Common Core wants your child to solve.
To bad Common Core can't teach Common Sense starting with our state legislature.
Alicia
I think our state legislature has a higher order thinking deficit around the bottom 25%.
Alicia
May wonders never cease. When buffoons make Wake and CMS school boards appear highly competent.
Alicia
4:29 and 4:55, thanks for your insightful comments. Although it makes me as a parent a bit fearful of what's to come for my young ones if we can not trust the Educrats and the people in charge to make the right decisions for the teachers, and the students.
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