Merit Pay for Teachers with only good test results
District my wife works in just passed Merit Pay at the school board meeting. Teachers will get bonus pay for good test results of their students. Some classrooms have more under achievers than others .. My comment is they need none. They should do their job. Teachers would also get a huge bonus for attendance. Fair or unfair?
0
-
quote:Originally posted by select-fire
quote:Originally posted by tr fox
quote:Originally posted by PanzerSlayer2
I'm not really sure how dumb kids in your class or bad parents or any of those other excuses really apply.
In my sale ompany we get dealt with bad economy, the product sucks, or competitor is luring aways customers and yet there are no exceptions to my sales quotas and our profit sharing and bonues.
I too have spent months putting together protoypes and sales proposals only to hae a prospective client bail. I will venture to say that I have spent more time in sales meetings, design sessions, traveling from my office to a customer to our manufacturing facilities, staying at lousy hotels, being delayed at airports and time away from home than any time a teacher puts into her class plan.
A goal is set, either you meet it or you don't regardless of the hand you're dealt
You do present some good logic there. However, one main difference between your situation and my wife's teaching situation is that I assume there are not many (if any) people within your organization that are purposely a drag on you and your sales efforts. In other words, I believe that any successful sales organization makes sure that their successful salespeople do not have any unnecessary roadblocks to their success. With my wife's teaching efforts there are numerous unnecessary roadblocks in her way as she attempts to do the best job she can.
But pay my wife what a successful, highly paid salesman makes and not only will she continue to work like she has two jobs but I will quit my job and help her.
My wife is very happy with what she makes Teaching. Bachelor, two Masters degree's, National Board Certification, and almost thru with her Ph.d. she makes great money for 9 months a teaching. In fact she will probably only be in the classroom one more year before taking a state dept job. No complaints on this end on wages.
When my wife taught in the K.C., MO school district (elementary school) she made about $55,000.00 per year. And with her education and decades of experience, she was at the very, very top of the salary ladder. I don't personally know you or your wife, so would you comment or compare on that?0 -
Add a little over 21% to your figure for last year. Ph.d will add more. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by select-fire
Add a little over 21% to your figure for last year. Ph.d will add more.
Good pay. Maybe wife and I should move to SC.
What's the rent-a-cop job market there like?[8D]0 -
Bring it on. SC could use here experience and she would get a job instantly. Wifes pay is for elementary teaching. However part of that pay is National Board certification the state and district pays her. Security jobs are pretty plentifull. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by select-fire
Bring it on. SC could use here experience and she would get a job instantly. Wifes pay is for elementary teaching. However part of that pay is National Board certification the state and district pays her. Security jobs are pretty plentifull.
Roger that. However I was basically joking as wife and I are too old and too near being through with work to make a major move just for sake of our careers. I do kinda wish we were younger because with her education level and experience and with my nationwide certification and many years of experince in my line of work we both could now get good paying jobs about anywhere in the USA. Unlike when we were young and just starting out. Back then we had much fewer choices.0 -
quote:Originally posted by dlrjj
quote:Originally posted by PanzerSlayer2
I'm not really sure how dumb kids in your class or bad parents or any of those other excuses really apply.
In my sale ompany we get dealt with bad economy, the product sucks, or competitor is luring aways customers and yet there are no exceptions to my sales quotas and our profit sharing and bonues.
I too have spent months putting together protoypes and sales proposals only to hae a prospective client bail. I will venture to say that I have spent more time in sales meetings, design sessions, traveling from my office to a customer to our manufacturing facilities, staying at lousy hotels, being delayed at airports and time away from home than any time a teacher puts into her class plan.
A goal is set, either you meet it or you don't regardless of the hand you're dealt
Did your product ever just find out it was pregnant and still have to go to class? Did your product break up with its boyfriend/girlfriend, get beaten by mom or dad, live with an alcoholic, watch the family move to divorce? Does your product get to you and not even know how to read, or speak the language?
Not you, the product itself. You're not dealing with an inanimate sales product here, it's an entirely different ballgame when you're dealing with people in this manner. Anyone who has ever tried to figure out why teenagers hate the world, and especially mom and dad, would understand the difference. It's easy when they are little, not so much when they hit puberty.
Good product or not, all of yours are the same. Kids don't come that way.
Respectfully, TR, I understand your sentiment, but the issue is, when you choose a career working with people, these are issues you have to deal with.
These things are fact of life. While certainly disagreeable, they are facts.
I work with the mentally retarded population, and certainly my job would be a whole heck of a lot easier if these people wouldn't make decisions and actions based on that. But that is what they do, and it is the best that they can do. I deal with it.
Nobody forced me into my job, I chose it, so I deal with it. I don't expect special compensation for "hazzard pay" for the tough cases. You take the good with the bad.
While certainly it would be preferable to have an entire caseload of "easy" cases, success stories, so to speak, that is an unrealistic expectation.
I have a great deal of respect for teachers, most teachers, I should say, having worked in the school system, I've seen my fair share of good and bad. No disrespect to your wife.
Back to the original post, I think this is crap. As it is, the entire school year is planned and taught around ensuring the class score well on the "standardized" tests. I've seen several otherwise intelligent child in the classrooms, who don't "test well," held back a grade, or sent to Sp. Ed., to avoid throwing off the grade's scores, and therefore reflect on the teacher ability.0 -
rcrxs, you may have missed the point of the post. There is no problem or complaint about the circumstances or the job. The only purpose is that it is very difficult to evaluate the quality of the job done when the product you are dealing with has so many variables.
That is not an excuse for poor work, nor an appeal for sympathy, merely an observation as to why merit pay is a bit more difficult to work with in a job of that nature. It is impossible to just assign a number to a percent of achievement, or even improvement, as a criterion. Look at the kids you know and tell me how many of them progress on a predictable or enforceable schedule.
None of this should be construed to be a complaint either for or against the pay, work load, working conditions, or degree of job difficulty of teaching. It is simply making the point that the job is near impossible to quantify in purely objective numbers, and that makes merit pay probably a poor idea in this profession.
Johnny Cochran only won one case (as far as I know) in about eight months back in 1995 during the OJ Simpson farce. Does that mean he did a poor job because he only handled one case? Did someone who won five hundred parking ticket cases in the same time do a better job?[:)]0 -
No, I don't think I missed the point of the post.
My response was meant to highlight the "human" variable, which occurs in any career where contact with human beings is imenent, which, I believe, you agree upon. As my boss would say, "That's life, deal with it."
It was also meant to highlight that teaching is one career where the teachers DO have some degree of control over the population to be sampled as an indication of their success, through recommendations to dismiss certain subjects from the acutal test population that they feel might jeopardize their results. I've seen it, it happens. While most teachers will vehemently deny this as a reason for retainment, such incentives as "merit bonuses" certainly would add to the incentive to do so for others.
Teachers, as a population, regardless of my respect for them, are human, and no more immune from the failings of human nature as any other, such as greed.0 -
rcrxs old lady, I bet you are great at fishing. Patience must be your middle name. I could not do your job. 0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
39 comments