CMS seeks to bypass teacher vote on performance pay

A local bill introduced by Rep. Ruth Samuelson this week would allow the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board to launch teacher performance pay without the approval of teachers.

Reaction from teachers has been swift. Judy Kidd, head of the Classroom Teachers Association, sent an "action alert" last night, urging members to tell local legislators that the bill "is NOT in the best interest of students of CMS, teachers of CMS and therefore the economic stability of Mecklenburg County." That group and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Association of Educators plan a news conference later today.

"If you want buy-in to any kind of performance pay, this is not the way to go about it," said CMAE President Mary McCray.

Trent Merchant, the school board's point person on performance pay, said this morning he hopes CMS can still create a plan that would win teacher approval, but said the bill would give the board a "nuclear option" for a key part of its education reform. He said CMS leaders have botched communication on the issue and lost the support of teachers and many parents, and called for a "time out" to rethink how officials are interacting with faculty.

"When we started talking about this three years ago, we said it would be done with teachers, not to teachers," he said. "Right now it seems like teachers feel like something is being done to them. Right now it feels adversarial."

Some background: Superintendent Peter Gorman and the board have long viewed performance pay as a key to improving educational results. The plan is to identify and reward the most effective teachers while helping weaker ones improve -- or, if all else fails, getting rid of them.

State legislators already approved a plan that would allow a handful of districts -- so far, CMS is the only one to apply -- to revise the teacher pay scale under certain conditions, including approval by a majority of teachers.

As CMS has moved toward its performance pay plan, which is scheduled to take effect for teachers in 2014, resistance has grown. Teachers have voiced concern about "value-added" ratings based on test scores -- and more recently, parents have mobilized as CMS rolls out 52 new local exams designed to size up student and teacher performance.

On Tuesday, Gorman sent employees a link to a five-minute video clip Tuesday, urging teachers to get more informed and engaged in the process of identifying effective teachers. He mentioned the new local bill but did not say it would eliminate the teacher-approval requirement. Instead, he said it would give CMS "freedom and flexibility  as a school district to make decisions about how we evaluate staff and how we compensate staff."

"We want to make sure we treat you as professionals and give you the information you need," he said.

Several teacher say that's not the impression they've gotten. One forwarded this list of concerns presented to Gorman and his staff by his Teacher Advisory Committee, with district responses in red. The responses "are degrading, demoralizing, and in a tone of voice that I have never read before. This is so scary to classroom teachers," the veteran teacher said.

Saving sports, paying executives, catching up

A few items as I catch up after a week off:

*The folks trying to raise private donations to save middle school sports in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will hold their first public meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 29, at Christ Lutheran Church, 4519 Providence Road. Another meeting in the northern part of the county is expected soon.

*Kay McSpadden, a teacher who writes opinion pieces for the Observer's editorial page, will be guest speaker at an Action for Education meeting at the East Meck media center, 6800 Monroe Road, from 6-9 p.m. Tuesday, April 5. This is the group of teachers and parents who are concerned about performance pay and the use of standardized testing to rate teachers. Read McSpadden's take on the issue here.

*I was interested to note that CMS hired a new human resources director, Daniel Habrat from Wells Fargo/Wachovia, at $160,000 a year. That's up 12.5 percent from the $140,000 Maurice Ambler was making before he left last summer. Kit Rea, promoted last week to Southwest area superintendent, is making virtually the same as her predecessor at $134,659. We'll be doing our annual payroll roundup soon; that will provide a better look at how executive salaries and positions stack up (it won't reflect job cuts that may happen in 2011-12).

*As noted recently, CMS Superintendent Peter Gorman's name has been floating as people speculate about Mayor Rahm Emanuel's possible picks for CEO of Chicago Public Schools (Gorman says he's not interested in leaving). Another site, Catalyst Chicago, has posted him as a top contender. The report notes that CMS is much smaller than Chicago Public Schools, but adds that "Gorman is no stranger to controversial decisions, such as closing schools and laying off teachers -- two things he would most likely have to do here."


*Columbia Journalism Review has a fascinating cover article on the challenges of covering teacher-effectiveness ratings and the national trends behind the push to use a more businesslike model for teacher pay. It's great context for big issues swirling in Charlotte (but not a quick read).

*Eric Smith, who was CMS superintendent from 1996 to 2002, has announced his resignation as Florida's education commissioner, saying he wants to let newly elected Gov. Rick Scott pick his own education leader.

*And finally, reporter Steve Lyttle shares the word that CMS is taking a different approach to Friday's teacher work day. Administrative offices will work 10-hour days today through Thursday and close Friday. Hmm ... if nothing else, that eliminates any confusion that might come from memos and edicts issued on April Fools Day.

Will Bill Gates come courting me?

Parent activist Pam Grundy shared this link to a Washington Post education blog about the Gates Foundation's latest quest to "win over the public and the media to its market-driven approach to school reform."

According to Valerie Strauss's blog, a grant proposal outlines plans to build “strong ties to local journalists, opinion elites, and local/state policymakers and their staffs” and ensure "frequent placement ... in local media coverage" of stories about teacher effectiveness, performance pay and value-added ratings.

Well! I had a front-page article about Charlotte-Mecklenburg's push toward performance pay in last Sunday's paper, with another coming out this Sunday looking at value-added ratings. I'm tempted to post an address where the Gates folks can mail a big ol' check.

Seriously, this is just another glimpse of the tangled world of education reform. You've got a billionaire philanthropist not only paying to promote his vision for better schools, but sponsoring a group to drum up "grassroots" support. Meanwhile, a local mom who's moving onto the national stage is keeping an eye on such developments and alerting the local media about the plan to woo us.

I may get confused, but I will never get bored on this beat!

Grading LA's teachers -- and Charlotte's

A Los Angeles Times article rating the effectiveness of teachers there is creating a lot of buzz around the country -- and getting close attention in the top offices of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

The newspaper commissioned a researcher with the Rand Corp. to calculate the "value added" ratings for more than 6,000 LA elementary-school teachers, based on test scores going back seven years. Those whose students gained more than expected had high ratings; those whose student gained little or regressed rated low. The Times plans to publish a database listing each teacher's rating later this month, but first is giving teachers a chance to view their ratings and comment.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has no plans to use such data. But CMS does.

Value-added ratings are part of Superintendent Peter Gorman's plan to roll out teacher performance pay in the coming years (he expects to announce a timeline this fall). He calls Rand "a very reputable company" that CMS has worked with, though he isn't familiar enough with the formula used in LA to say how close it might come to what CMS eventually develops.

He's been fascinated to see what the newspaper came up with -- and watch the reaction.

"Contrary to popular belief, the best teachers were not concentrated in schools in the most affluent neighborhoods, nor were the weakest instructors bunched in poor areas," the article says. "Rather, these teachers were scattered throughout the district. The quality of instruction typically varied far more within a school than between schools."

Even in high-performing schools, principals weren't always good at sizing up which teachers were effective, the reporters found. Highly effective teachers vary in style and personality, but "perhaps not surprisingly, they shared a tendency to be strict, maintain high standards and encourage critical thinking."

The LA teachers' union is pushing for a mass boycott of the Times, calling the publication of the database "an irresponsible, offensive intrusion into (teachers') professional life that will do nothing to improve student learning."

In Charlotte, Gorman says he's convinced some type of value-added rating should be part -- but not all -- of what determines a teacher's pay.

"One of the discussions we've had: As you calculate a value-added, is it a public record?" Gorman said. "And if it's a public record, do you get parents saying, 'I want so-and-so because they have the highest value-added?' We're paying close attention to how this is playing out."

Even among the nation's education reporters, opinions are mixed about the merit of listing individual ratings, given the limitations of testing to size up what kids have learned. (Read what Linda Perlstein, public editor for the Education Writers Association, has to say about the article here.)

Gorman says he and his staff "purposefully slowed down" since announcing plans to push performance pay in CMS. He said he wants to make sure local teachers and principals have a say, and wants to learn from other districts' experiences.

"This is a situation to watch from afar," he said.