Post Teacher Observation Debriefing Video

Grading Teachers from NBC4i.com

Nadia Bachir of WCMH, a local television station in Columbus, produced this short one minute video about teacher evaluations in the state of Ohio. The segment features Scott DiMauro, a social studies teacher from Worthington, and Amy Loring, a local third grade teacher and mother of three. In the video, Scott expresses concern about the requirement to use standardized test scores as 50% of teacher evaluations and stressed the need for local control and flexibility. He also expresses concern about requiring students to take standardized tests every year--not for the purpose of evaluating students, but for the purpose of evaluating teachers. 

A Teacher Shares Concerns About Standardized Tests and Performance Evaluations

The Service of Democratic Education

At the commencement ceremony for Columbia University's Teachers College on May 18, Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond—a nationally renowned leader in education reform and former education adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign—was awarded the Teachers College medal for distinguished service. She responded with an elegant address on public education in America. Here are excerpts from that address:

"...During that decade, precisely 100 years ago, nationally distributed tests of arithmetic, handwriting and English were put into use. Their results were used to compare students, teachers and schools; to report to the public; and even to award merit pay—a short-lived innovation due to the many problems it caused.

Does any of this sound familiar?

In the view of these brilliant managerial engineers, professionally trained teachers were considered troublesome, because they had their own ideas about education and frequently didn’t go along meekly with the plan.

As one such teacher wrote in The American Teacher in 1912:

We have yielded to the arrogance of "big business men" and have accepted their criteria of efficiency at their own valuation, without question. We have consented to measure the results of educational efforts in terms of price and product—the terms that prevail in the factory and the department store. But education, since it deals in the first place with human organisms, and in the second place with individualities, is not analogous to a standardizable manufacturing process. Education must measure its efficiency not in terms of so many promotions per dollar of expenditure, nor even in terms of so many student-hours per dollar of salary; it must measure its efficiency in terms of increased humanism, increased power to do, increased capacity to appreciate.

 ...The new scientific managers, like the Franklin Bobbitts before them, like to rank and sort students, teachers and schools—rewarding those at the top and punishing those at the bottom, something that the highest-achieving countries not only don’t do but often forbid. The present-day Bobbitts would create “efficiencies” by firing teachers and closing schools, while issuing multimillion-dollar contracts for testing and data systems to create more graphs, charts and report cards on which to rank and sort… well, just about everything.

...And doing the right thing—meeting that professional commitment—is not easy. Whether it is standing up for a child who is mistreated, or finding the energy to go that extra mile to reach out to a troubled parent, or taking up a challenging issue in the research, or taking on a difficult concern in the public discourse, doing the right thing is often hard. As King reminded us:

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.

Take heart in knowing that the arc of history is long, as King noted, but it bends toward justice. Take courage in knowing that where a community of hands comes together to work toward justice, a freedom seed will grow. And take pride in knowing, when the work is challenging and setbacks come—as they must when anything important is happening—that you are building a better future for every child and family and community you touch. And remember, as Robert F. Kennedy observed:

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."

 Continue Reading Her Full Address:
The Service of Democratic Education

An American Agenda for Education Reform

Recently, the National Center on Education and the Economy released a report entitled "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: An American Agenda for Education Reform" by Marc S. Tucker. The report examines the education systems of Finland, Japan, Singapore, Shanghai and Ontario, Canada as a point of comparison for the American system. Below are excerpts from that report:

"...Put these three points together—highly qualified college educated women and minorities abandoning teaching as a career, the drop in admission standards following the baby boom and the decision by many capable students to avoid teaching because of the widespread teacher layoffs, and we can see the danger ahead for the United States. All we need to do to acquire a very poor teaching force is nothing. Inaction, not action, will bring about this result. It is critical that this trend be reversed. We cannot afford to continue bottom fishing for prospective teachers while the best performing countries are cream skimming.

...There are no “alternative routes” to entering the teaching force in Finland. The only way to become a teacher in Finland is to get a university degree in teaching. 

...At the International Summit on the Teaching Profession convened by Secretary Duncan in New York City in March 2011, the Minister of Education of Singapore offered the observation that the goal of compensation policy ought to be to “take compensation off the table” as a consideration when able young people are making career decisions. There was wide agreement on that point among the ministers of the other top-performing countries around the table.

 

...The United States is far from the Singapore minister’s standard. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, teachers earn a national average starting salary of $30,377. That compares with $43,635 for computer programmers, $44,668 for accountants and $45,570 for registered nurses. None of these occupations are among the leading professions, which provide starting salaries that are even higher. Not only do teachers make markedly less than other occupations requiring the same level of education, but census data shows that teachers have been falling farther and farther behind the average compensation for occupations requiring a college degree for 60 years.

...As we have seen, the prevailing view in the United States is that our teachers need not come from the more able strata of the college-educated population. We behave as if we believe that only a few weeks of training is needed to do what they have to do, a sure sign that we do not believe teaching is a profession at all.

 

...Any country that recruits its teachers from the higher ranges of the applied ability distribution will quickly find that—in order to keep them—it has to train them in high quality, high status universities, support them well once hired and offer them decent pay and professional work environments, and—not least—trust them to do the right thing.

...It turns out that neither the researchers whose work is reported on in this paper nor the analysts of the OECD PISA data have found any evidence that any country that leads the world’s education performance league tables has gotten there by ...implementing any of the major agenda items that dominate the education reform agenda in the United States. We include in this list the use of market mechanisms such as charter schools and vouchers, the identification and support of education entrepreneurs to disrupt the system, and the use of student performance data on standardized tests to identify teachers and principals who are then rewarded on that basis for the value they add to a student’s education or who are punished because they fail to do so.

 

...They insisted on high standards but they listened hard to what the teachers had to say about the support they needed to raise student achievement to those standards. They decided that the highest leverage strategy available to them was to ...build the capacity and professional skill and commitment of their in-place teaching force. They focused on what it would take to build capacity at every level of the system to deliver, and wherever possible, supplied it. They made a point of trusting teachers and the teachers returned their trust.”

 

Continue Reading the Full Report:

An American Agenda for Education Reform 

A Worthington Teacher's Testimony Against Ohio HB153

OEA member and WEA President Mark Hill's written testimony against HB 153

"Chairman Widener, Ranking Member Skindell, and members of the Senate Finance Committee, my name is Mark Hill. I am a math teacher in the Worthington City Schools currently serving as president of the Worthington Education Association. Thank you for allowing me to offer testimony on HB153.

I come today to talk to you about the teacher accountability provisions in HB 153. I have some concerns about the structure for accountability that is in the version passed out of the House. 

I would like to begin by saying that I don’t have a problem with a rigorous evaluation system for teachers nor do I disagree with the notion of removing ineffective teachers from the classroom. That may sound unusual coming from a leader of a local teachers union but I am a parent, too, and I care about access to a high quality education for my kids. The teachers I represent take a great deal of pride in teaching in an excellent school district; many of them live in the district and all of them want it to remain excellent; none of them want to work alongside a bad teacher. 

HB153, as passed by the House, goes too far. It requires teachers to be rated highly effective, effective, needs improvement, or unsatisfactory based on an evaluation in which 50% of the score is measuring student growth through value added scores averaged over three years. It requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to set a minimum level value added measure for a teacher for each of the rating levels. Furthermore, it imposes draconian penalties for teachers who are rated as unsatisfactory or needs improvement including imposition of unpaid leave on a teacher rated at those levels if their principal does not consent to placing them in their building the next year effectively ending their careers. 

Value added scores are a great concept but as a statistical measure, they are fraught with error. Scores fluctuate by random error; in Houston’s value added system only 38% of the top fifth remained in the top rating the next year. 23% of the top fifth in performance ended up being in the bottom fifth the next year and vice versa. Fluctuations like that defy reason; it is highly unlikely that a fourth of the top teachers in Houston one year were poor performers the next. 

According to another study done for the US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Evaluation found that, using three years of data, a teacher who should be rated as average has a 25% chance of being rated significantly below average. A teacher who should be rated as a top performer has a 10% chance of being rated significantly below average. This means under HB 153, 25% of the average teachers in Ohio and 10% of the good teachers in Ohio would be in jeopardy of losing their jobs due to statistical error. I hope the Ohio General Assembly would not want to add a “Wheel of Fortune” element to teachers’ careers. 

Under this system, who would take care of the kids? There are teachers who ask for the students with behavior problems and learning disabilities because they care about them and believe they deserve an education. Under HB 153, these teachers would be putting their career at risk to do so. My own son has Aspergers Syndrome, which is a condition on the autism spectrum – who will want to teach him? Under HB153, math and reading teachers are far more at risk for losing their jobs than other teachers because those are the only areas with enough scores to build a value-added modeling system. Who would want to work in an area where you are constantly worrying about losing your job due to a statistical error? 

I don’t come just to complain but to offer solutions. First, you’ve already passed this framework for evaluation in Senate Bill 5. There is no logical reason to duplicate it in HB153 – frankly, I don’t believe it belongs in either bill but should be a subject of debate on its own. Second, instead of mandating 50% value added, allow the local education agency to decide how to best fit value added in their evaluations. This is the system under Race to the Top – Worthington is a Race to the Top district, so we have already agreed to rate teachers’ effectiveness through evaluation using value added modeling. A top down statewide approach will have serious unintended consequences. 

Thank you for listening."

No Merit in Merit Pay for Teachers

Walt Gardner of the Guardian in the UK recently provided a brief history of merit pay programs for teachers. Here is a portion of that article:

"Pay-for-performance began in England in about 1710, when salaries were based on test scores in reading, writing and arithmetic....

The trouble was that the strategy sucked the creative life out of classrooms, as teachers became obsessed with the code. When it became apparent that the approach demeaned education, it was dropped in the 1890s. Pay-for-performance re-emerged briefly in Canada in 1876, but it ran into similar difficulties and was terminated in 1883....

It's highly unlikely, however, that the evidence amassed over the years will finally put an end to teacher incentive plans. Educational outsiders have the luxury of not having to live with the consequences of their delusions."

Read the Full Article:
No Merit in Merit Pay for Teachers

Dissection of Performance Pay for Teachers in Ohio Senate Bill 5

Greg Mild, a public high school teacher in the state of Ohio, wrote this on March 3, 2011. He graciously gave me permission to share it here.

The final version of Senate Bill 5, as passed by the Senate, replaced the word "merit" with "performance" measures as a means of determining teacher pay.  The bill specifies 5 criteria.  I have copied the language from the bill and noted the page numbers below for easy referencing.  For easy reading, I have removed all redacted text. All five criteria are unsuitable to be included into law.

First, view Senate Bill 5 (as passed by the Senate on March 2, 2011)
http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/BillText129/129_SB_5_PS_Y.pdf

3) Each city, exempted village, local, and joint vocational school district shall pay teachers' salaries based upon performance as required under section 3317.13 of the Revised Code.
p. 113

Sec. 3317.13
(A) As used in this section "teacher" means all teachers employed by the board of education of any school district, including any cooperative education or joint vocational school district and all teachers employed by any educational service center governing board.
(B) Each teacher shall be paid a salary based upon performance as described in section 3317.13 of the Revised Code. [the redundancy of the section number being repeated is an addition to the Code]
(C) For purposes of this section, a board shall measure a teacher's performance by considering all of the following:
(1) The level of license issued under section 3319.22 of the Revised Code that the teacher holds;
(2) Whether the teacher is a "highly qualified teacher" as defined in section 3319.074 of the Revised Code;
(3) The value-added measure the board uses to determine the performance of the students assigned to the teacher's classroom;
(4) The results of the teacher's performance evaluations conducted under section 3319.111 of the Revised Code, any peer review program created by an agreement entered into by a board of education and representatives of teachers employed by that board, or any other system of evaluation used by the board;
(5) Any other criteria established by the board.
pp. 151-154

For beginners, please note that C states "shall measure a teacher's performance by considering all of the following."  Not some, not those that apply, but ALL.

1. Licensure.  The inclusion of this item into law implicitly places a value on experience.  The progression of licenses under update state law includes limitations that set minimum years of experience.  A teacher cannot obtain a professional license with fewer than 4 years of experience (regardless of performance).  A teacher cannot obtain either the Lead Professional or Senior Professional licenses with fewer than 9 years of experience (regardless of performance or credentials).  Therefore, by applying differing dollar values to these licenses, the bill is assigning a dollar value on experience, a specific provision the bill was intended to remove.  In addition, a teacher who holds a permanent certificate will have at least 20 years of experience (since discontinued).  An individual holding an 8-year certificates will have at least 9 years of experience (since discontinued).  Again, these certificates will place a value on experience, a specific provision the bill was intended to remove.  Many teachers hold multiple licenses, but are typically (and technically) only teaching under one at a time (e.g., a high school counselor with an English license).  Will the teacher be credited for the higher valued license if there is a premium?  The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards requires a minimum of three years of teaching experience before applying for National Board Certification.  To become licensed as a principal in the state of Ohio, you must hold a valid teaching license and have three years of teaching experience under that license.  These are just a couple of examples.  Experience matters.
2. Highly Qualified Teacher.  A teacher is required to report their HQT status for the courses they are on record for teaching.  Immediately, this excludes many educators from this category.  In Columbus, nurses, social workers, counselors, resource teachers, some intervention specialists, coordinators, etc., do not qualify.  As a result, many of these educators would be unable to meet ALL of the performance requirements.  But better yet, how about this text from the Ohio Department of Education's HQT Toolkit: "Newly hired and veteran teachers must satisfy the definition of a Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT). Veteran teachers must have been HQT by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. Federal regulations require that new and newly hired teachers be highly qualified at the time of hire."  Did you catch that?  It is against FEDERAL REGULATIONS to employ teachers that are not highly qualified.This performance measure is irrelevant.
3. Value-Added Measures.  Value-added measures are not recommended for use in the evaluation of teacher performance.  Numerous published studies and editorials can be obtained quickly by searching the term in Google.  Here's one with some pretty reputable authors: http://epi.3cdn.net/b9667271ee6c154195_t9m6iij8k.pdf    Of equal or greater interest to me is the fact that only 30% of teachers in Columbus are currently in positions that might have value-added data.  Even if Ohio tried to expand standardized testing to all grades and all subjects, we are still excluding all of non-core teachers and the educators already mentioned in the HQT information.  I don't think the creating of assessments for all grades and subjects will be in the budget this year.
4. Performance Evaluations.  Dig deeper on this item and you'll find that it only applies to teachers on a limited contract.  So, every teacher on a limited contract would need to undergo a performance evaluation as a part of determining their pay.  Considering the other provisions in the bill, this evaluation could be solely determined by the board.  But even if the board works with teachers and implements a peer-review model or principal-review model, anyone have reservations about the legitimacy of either in terms of a criteria for salary?  And imagine the cost time and cost associated with implementation.  Sound expensive?  What about down the road when Columbus has over 4,000 educators involved in this process (since continuing contracts will no longer be issued).  The peer observation method is an outstanding procedure for helping improve practice through collaboration, but it is not something that should be in any way linked to base salary.  It begs the system to corrupt itself and the source of funding to do it properly on a district-wide scale is prohibitive.
5. Any Other Criteria Established by the Board.  Actually, as long as this means pay based on education and experience, I think it's a great idea.  Otherwise, this opens the door for any educational and unproven fad to creep in and determine salary.  This could also open the door for favoritism, nepotism, and any other bad -ism to enter the equations.   With this 5th option as a part of the bill, there is almost no reason for 1-4 to be included.

I hope you find this explanation useful.  I tried to keep the points brief so that it was easier to digest.  Know that there are many additional points that could be elaborated on, especially in the value-added discussion.  Please share this with anyone that you feel appropriate.  If you have questions or would like additional information about what I entered here, feel free to comment or send me a message.

Why We have Unions & Why SB5 is a Bad Idea for Education in Ohio.

The following post was created by Anissa Fehring and the "No SB 5 for Ohio" Facebook group. 

"Why do we have Unions?

1) Because unions lift all boats up- Unions raise wages for everyone. 

          Unions created the MIDDLE CLASS!

2) Unions gave you no child labor, an 8 hour workday and weekends

3)  An Economic Democracy is a PRECONDITION for a Political Democracy.- Rep. Dennis Kucinich

4)  So people are not treated like WAL-MART EMPLOYEES.

          Women, look out this may be what we will be facing soon.

          Merit Pay could lead to this. (Current Supreme Court Case

          about Wal-Mart paying their women managers much less than men)

5) Unions allow for Due Process just like in a court of law.

There are many MYTHS running rampant in the public that need to be addressed.

MYTH:  UNION DUES pay for CAMPAIGNS!

           

          This is not LEGAL!!!!! 

            Unions ask their members to contribute to PACS which pay for campaigns.

             For example I give  $2 a pay for PACS. This is MY CHOICE & IS NOT REQUIRED

            by union members.

MYTH:  Teachers HAND SELECT BOARD of EDUCATION Members.

            That could be the farthest from the truth!  The citizens of the community vote for these members.

MYTH:  The Board of Education will treat the teachers FAIRLY.

            In SB 5 the BOARD OF EDUCATION makes the FINAL DECISION.

            They are usually NOT LOOKING OUT FOR TEACHERS, only for their bottom line.

Remember--

A Teacher's working environment is YOUR Child's LEARNING ENVIRONMENT.

MYTH: Teachers make just as much as other, comparable professions.

FACT: According to a recent study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the teaching profession has an average national starting salary of $30,377. Meanwhile, NACE finds that other college graduates who enter fields requiring similar training and responsibilities start at higher salaries:

• Computer programmers start at an average of $43,635,
• Public accounting professionals at $44,668, and 
• Registered nurses at $45,570.

            http://www.nea.org/home/12661.htm

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average weekly salary of

the American Worker as of January 2010 is $629.04, or $32,708.10 per year. 

***WE ARE NOT COMPARING APPLES to APPLES. 

****Many Government workers have bachelor and masters degrees.

MYTH: Thanks to tenure, teachers can never be fired, no matter how bad they are.

• FACT: Tenure does not mean a "job for life," as many people believe. It means "just cause" for discipline and termination, be the reason incompetence or extreme misconduct. And it means "due process," the right to a fair hearing to contest charges. Quite simply, any tenured teacher can be fired for a legitimate reason, after school administrators prove their case.
• That's similar to what American citizens expect when charged with violation of a law.

            http://www.nea.org/home/12661.htm

MYTH: The rewards of working with children make up for low pay.

FACT:  It is true that most educators decide to enter the teaching profession because of a desire to work with children, but to attract and retain a greater number of dedicated, committed professionals, educators need salaries that are literally "attractive.“  The intrinsic rewards of an education career are often used as a rationale for low salaries. But low teacher pay comes at a very high cost.

Close to 50 percent new teachers leave the profession during the first five years of teaching, and 37 percent of teachers who do not plan to continue teaching until retirement blame low pay for their decision to leave the profession.

New teachers are often unable to pay off their loans or afford houses in the communities where they teach. Teachers and education support professionals often work two and three jobs to make ends meet. The stress and exhaustion can become unbearable, forcing people out of the profession to more lucrative positions.                                         http://www.nea.org/home/12661.htm

MYTH:  Teachers get paid for their summers off and only work for 7 hours a day during a school week.

1) Teachers get paid per diam- PER DAY that we work. 

            By Ohio law our pay is spread over the entire year.

2)  We do not work in the summers-which are not as long as you think. (Middle of June through middle of August)

3)  Many teachers actually do work in the summer because we can not legally file for unemployment as other professions do in the winter.

4)  We do not get PAID VACATIONS. Plus we can't choose our vacations when prices are cheaper to travel.

5)  Many of us get to school an hour before or stay after at least an hour to two hours after the students leave. 

6)  We grade papers through the week, create new lessons, fill out special education forms, probation forms for students, write college recommendations and work on Sundays to get ready for the new week.  That IS NOT A 40 hour a week job.  Most teachers work a 50-60 hours a week job!

7)  We create and provide many different MODIFIED TESTS for ALL of our special education students whom we must educate as public school teachers.  You will NOT FIND special education students IN A PRIVATE school because they can CHOOSE their clientele and we cannot.

8)  We take college classes in the summer to keep up with required certification and also to enhance our teaching with new knowledge.  We take these classes JUST BECAUSE we want to be better in the classroom!  By the way we have to pay for those classes out of our own pockets, unlike many other private sector professionals who are reimbursed for their continuing education.  We must take 6 credit hours to be recertified every 5 years. Our certification costs have gone up from $60 to $200!

9) Also, most of us are back in our classrooms preparing for the new school year in the

            beginning of August.

This is what is facing TEACHERS IN OHIO:

HB69 and SB3--- Pension Reform

In order to make STRS (State Teacher's Retirement System) solvent within 30 yrs, STRS came out with a much more radical plan than the one produced in the fall of 2010.  Governor Kasich said he would only vote for one with a 30 year solvency when we have been living under a 40 yr. plan.

This is what is being proposed in Columbus.

While we don't like these changes we are willing to abide by them to keep STRS solvent.

This is a part of our SHARED SACRAFICE.

We will be working for 38-39 instead of the 30 yrs. that we were all told when entering the teaching profession in Ohio.  I had 12 years left until I could retire from Teaching and get a 9-5 job that was not so exhausting.  However, I now will have 20 more years. 

Teaching is Exhilarating but more exhausting each year as we are not only teachers, but often act as parents and counselors.  We have more and more students with needs that are nothing like what you and I faced as teenagers.

We won't be able to TOUCH our PENSION UNTIL we have taught 35 years AND are AGED 60!  If we do, we will face a major deduction.

Right now you can retire with 30 yrs and receive 66% of your pension. If you work up until 35 years you receive  88%!

NEW PROPOSAL-- 30 years gets you 40%  and 35 years gets you 77% every year after that is around 2.2% more.

We do not get a COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) for 5 years after we begin to collect our pension, unlike Social Security whose COLA is based on the rate of inflation.

Currently Teacher's pay 10% into STRS and the employer pays 14%. 

Starting in the fall of 2012 Ohio Teachers will be contributing 1% extra per year until they hit 13% .

Under Governor Kasich's Budget he wants to allow the employer to only pay 12% and contributors must contribute 2% more which means within the next year we will be paying 13% and MOST OF US HAVE BEEN AND ARE ON A PAY FREEZE!  Additionally Gov. Kasich’s plan makes a solvent pension plan insolvent, as the increased amount paid by teachers (which they can withdraw) vs. decreased amount paid by districts (which they can’t withdraw) unbalances the plan.

Long lasting effects of this plan:  older teachers and few new younger teachers.

SB5- affects Teachers in the following ways-

1)  You can collectively bargain for wages, hours and working conditions however if you strike you are subject to removal and shall have pay deducted at the rate of twice the daily rate of pay for each day of striking.  And face a $1,000.00 fine.

2)  Tenure remains for those who have it but no one else which means NOTHING because we are going to MERIT PAY!

3)  We will pay 15% of our health care, with no say in the type of plan.

4)  Sick days will be lowered from 15 days to 10 days and NO ACCUMULATION

            which then eventually gets rid of SEVERANCE packages.

            Also, you may not be able to use sick days for MATERNITY LEAVE.

5)  SB5 allows the school board to pick whatever health care program they want.

            We will have no say in negotiations on this issue.  So, they can pick the cheapest and worst.

6)   SB5 eliminates seniority as the sole criterion for lay offs. 

This will surely encourage employers to lay off the most senior members who make the most money. Because SB5 also eliminates binding arbitration, there will be no grievance process, so terminations because of age or expense will immediately go to lawsuits – and guess who will pay? The state of Ohio. So instead of saving the state money, it will cost the state.

Many schools are now only hiring employees with less than 3 years experience OR only giving teachers 3 years of experience even when they may have upwards of 30 years experience!  This is why it is so hard to leave a district after so many years of experience.  It used to be 7 years was all a district would give you.  Now if they can fire you because you are making too much you COULD GET A JOB but with ONLY 3 YEARS experience.  Imagine the home foreclosures teachers will be facing if put into this situation. 

7)  Teachers will be paid on MERIT PAY: If Merit Pay sounds like such a good

          idea, why does no one know what it looks like. Read the following letter:

Dear State of Ohio Republican Legislators,

We are taxpayers and voters in this state. Oh yes, we are also teachers.

As such we are trying to understand the provisions of SB5 that will so deeply affect our lives. While we are puzzled why you are trying to balance the budget on the backs of dedicated public servants instead of those who brought this economic calamity upon all of us, we are particularly mystified by the Merit Pay provision you’ve included since no one, including you, has ever defined or explained it. As teachers we’d like to give you a little quiz on Merit Pay to assess your understanding of this provision (I’m sure you’d be glad to comply as you are such proponents of the merits of standardized testing).

ESSAY Question #1: Please define and/or describe fully Merit Pay, using specific logical examples to back up your answer.

Too hard? No specifics coming to mind? No statistics to prove Merit Pay can or has ever worked?

Then let us help you with a study guide of questions because, as conscientious teachers, we want our students to succeed rather than entrapping them in a test of “gotcha.”

1. Merit Pay based on standardized test results: Will the Ohio Graduation Test  (OGT) success rate be used for individual teachers? Since the test is given in 10th grade in Reading, Writing, Social Studies, Math, and Science, will only 10th grade teachers receive Merit Pay? What happens to Spanish teachers, Art teachers, Physical Education teachers, Business teachers?….well, you get the picture. Does the 10th grade teacher with honors students get the same Merit Pay scale as the 10th grade teacher with 16 separate Individualized Education (IEP) students included in his/her class? Do teachers get to pick the students in their classes, as bankers get to pick to whom they give a loan? Will teachers get less Merit Pay if their students newly arrived from other countries score low, or can they just turn them over to Immigration and Naturalization for deportation, legal or not, and will that earn Merit Pay? Will public school districts get to choose the students who will attend their schools, as private schools do, so they can eliminate low scorers before they can be counted in their OGT results?
2. Merit Pay based on student evaluations: Will teachers be rated by their students when they demand the best from them and thus make students work hard, often causing students to complain (low rating predicted here)? Will teachers be rated by students 1 or 2 or 5 years down the road, when their students email or call or write and thank them for teaching them work habits that are paying off in college or their jobs? Will those scores be averaged, or will the better score wipe out the worse score?
3. Merit Pay based on parent evaluations: Will parents spend all day every day in the classroom to observe the teachers’ techniques, read all the lesson plans, witness the individualized attention given to each student? (Of course the rooms will get rather crowded since class sizes are rising as schools cut teachers.)Will teachers who hold their students to a high standard lose Merit Pay when a parent complains his daughter cannot play soccer or her son won’t get into his first choice college because of the C the teacher “gave” ?
4. Merit Pay based on extra-contractual work: I know this area of study surprises you because you didn’t know it would be on the quiz since you didn’t realize teachers work above and beyond their contracts every single day. Will the teacher who spends between $100 to $500 yearly on classroom supplies, at times food and clothes for his or her students, receive reimbursement for this money as well as Merit Pay, or will Merit Pay count as reimbursement? How many letters of recommendation or scholarship letters will a teacher have to write on his/ her own time to count for Merit Pay – 10, 20, 40+ as many teachers of seniors willingly do? Will teachers need to wear a monitoring device, so their extra hours before and after school in their classrooms grading or working with students, or weekends spent on lesson plans, grading, and the aforementioned letters of recommendation count for Merit Pay? Or will a simple affidavit from their spouses and children testifying to their absence from family functions be sufficient?
5. Combat Pay: You’ll need to know that this is another term for Merit Pay in some schools or in some classrooms. How many times will a teacher need to be stabbed by a pair of scissors or sworn at to warrant Merit Pay? Will more Merit Pay be awarded if a teacher’s tires are slashed or his car keyed?

There will be an extra credit question, so think hard: when will a teacher be so good and earn so much Merit Pay that a district will let him or her go rather than pay that much?

We hope this study guide will enable you to answer our question about what Merit Pay looks like, as you enact legislation including this provision. We’re certain you would want to make your high school government teachers proud of the jobs you are doing serving the citizens of the state of Ohio.

As we await your answer, we’ll go back to doing what we do best: teaching the future generations of voters to preserve democracy in America.

Sincerely,

Annie Brust, high school English teacher

Nicole Costigan, high school English teacher

Jeanette DiBernardo, high school English teacher

Joy Gray, high school English teacher

Emily Hope, high school English teacher

Anissa Smith, high school social studies teacher

 

P.S. Since Merit Pay is such a good idea, we know you’ll want to institute it for yourselves immediately as a cost saving measure for Ohio as well as a way to improve the quality of legislation since we the taxpayers pay YOUR salaries. We suggest you use the formula used to rank schools, as presented on the Ohio Department of Education’s website: “Ohio’s Value-added system uses an advanced methodology (Education Value-added Assessment System – EVAAS)… This helps assure the validity and usefulness of the resulting measures as they are used in high stakes applications. In addition to the value-added (school and district effects) measures derived from this methodology, Ohio uses EVAAS to compute its federally approved Growth Model (student level projections for AYP).” Confused? Sound like gibberish? Don’t worry – that’s for next week’s quiz.

Governor Kasich's Budget Plan

            takes money from Public Schools and gives it to Charter and Private Schools!

Let me tell you why this is a BAD idea.

          1)  Most private and charter schools do not have any sort of a special

                   education program that by LAW public schools MUST provide at a

                   huge cost to schools.

          2)  Public schools CAN NOT let go of students because of so many demerits

                   they obtain.

          3)  Public schools must provide MODIFIED TESTS to special EDUCATION

                   students BY LAW, but when it comes to the OGT all they get is a longer

                    time to take the test.

          4)  Some Public Schools have co-taught classes where the class is 1/2 special

                   education and 1/2 regular education.  As a teacher I try my hardest to

                   give critical  thinking questions to those students who are more

                   advanced, but when you have students who are so low that they are

                   exempt from taking the OGT tests they look at you like deer in

                   headlights. It is very difficult to teach this way.

WHAT are Senators &  House Representatives willing to Sacrifice?

PAY???  They give themselves Pay raises!  MERIT PAY?????,  Health Care????,  PENSIONS????  Why haven’t we heard what they are willing to sacrifice?

It's great that the Governor is giving a $5,000 voucher to parents to spend on any charter or private school, but when tuition costs upwards of $15,000 - $20,000 a year at some of these school only the upper middle class can afford the schools.

The economic collapse was started by greedy corporations who were giving out too many loans to people they knew couldn't afford it.  So what happens, they get a 0% loan from the government and then fix their companies and this year are passing out BONUSES to their top employees.

I am a UNION member who is willing to give more money to health care, pensions and less pay.  However I believe there should be a SHARED SACRAFICE to end our countries economical problems.

The NATIONAL average of UNION MEMBERSHIP is ONLY 12%.

Ohio's union membership is 13.7%.  More comes from the public rather than the private sector.  Plain Dealer 3/13/2011

Is Governor Kasich's plan to end unions due to BUDGET CONSTRAINTS OR IS IT POLITICALLY DRIVEN?  Think about this for a moment-- Presidential Political Campaigns are won due to MONEY.  Democrats get much of their campaign money from Unions and Republicans get much of their money from Private Businesses.  (OPENSECRETS.ORG)  If you get rid of unions you get rid of most of your competition!

Finally the Ohio Republicans are stating the following:

Columbus Dispatch- March 29, 2011

"I and several of my fellow colleagues are in favor of a right-to-work state. Unfortunately, that’s not what this bill does, but it sets the framework for conversations later on."-  House Commerce and Labor Chairman Joe Uecker (R-Loveland)

Chairman Uecker finally admitted what the Republicans have long denied, that SB 5 is not about the State budget, it’s not about giving local government more flexibility, it’s about setting the stage to end organized labor in Ohio entirely. 

If you ask the majority of parents, they like their own schools but believe schools are FAILING due to all of the Negative Media that is out there about teachers.

Teaching TAKES A VILLAGE!  Not only should teachers be responsible, but PARENTS need to BE PARENTS not absent parents, not the best friend of their child and not HELICOPTER parents.

Quoting from a teacher who wrote Scott Walker in Wisconsin,

"Education in America is too diverse and vast to make neat, unilateral prescriptions for saving schools that actually need rescue---or improving the large majority of schools, whose performance ranges from mediocre to dynamic and outstanding."-- (KENSTON is an EXCELLENT SCHOOL DISTRICT)

I did not become a Teacher to get RICH or Make BONUSES.

Why did we go into teaching?

For most of us it was to spread the love and passion of our subject matter and to help the children grow into educated, thoughtful and productive citizens in this world.

We do know that when given opportunity, knowledge, a little self-discipline and motivation, seeing YOUR kids succeed is what it's all about."

Facts on Ohio Senate Bill 5-Ohio Issue 2

Myth: "Senate Bill 5 enacts reasonable reforms by only requiring public employees to contribute 10% of their salaries to their retirements and pay 15% of their health care costs."	FACT: ·  Ohio Senate Bill 5 is 304 pages long. Retirement contributions and health care costs are only a tiny portion of the changes enacted by this bill. In reality, it gives governing bodies executive power (as they should have) as well as judicial power in the labor dispute resolution process. This violates constitutional checks and balances by ending the separation of powers. (SB5 is 304 Pages Long) ·  Ohio Republican State Senator Tim Grendell stated that Senate Bill 5 was unconstitutional before the Ohio Senate on March 30, 2011 based on the 1989 Ohio Supreme Court case City of Rocky River v. State Employment Relations Board. (Source)
Myth: “Private sector workers in the state have faced cutbacks, while public workers haven’t sacrificed anything.”	FACT: ·  State and local employees have accepted wage freezes, health premium increases, mandatory furloughs, and other concessions in response to economic conditions. (James J. Brudney of the American Constitution Society)
Myth: “Salaries and benefits paid to public employees are out of line with the private sector.”	FACT: ·  Public employees make 6.8% less than their private sector counterparts (Economic Policy Institute, Rutgers University) ·  According to the Wall Street Journal, teachers work the same number of hours as the average full-time worker in the United States (Source: Teacher Hours)
Myth: “It isn’t fair that taxpayers pay for teachers’ retirement.”	FACT: ·  Teachers earn compensation in two forms: cash salaries and deferred salaries. The cash salary is their paycheck. 10% of each paycheck is deducted and contributed to their retirement. An amount equal to 14% of the cash salary is contributed on behalf of the employee as deferred salary to their retirement. Teachers’ accepted deferred salaries in lieu of cash salary increases. (Rick Ungar of Forbes magazine)
Myth: “We should pay teachers based on merit because this will encourage teachers to work harder and perform better.”	FACT: ·  Value-added formulas for teacher performance based on standardized test are not statistically valid and reliable. (National Research Council, Economic Policy Institute, New York Times, Washington Post, National Education Policy Center, Rethinking Schools) ·  Merit pay systems for teachers have been tried in New York City, Chicago, Washington D.C. and Nashville where studies have shown that they did not increase student achievement (Mathematica Policy Research, Economic Policy Institute, National Educational Policy Center, Vanderbilt University) ·  Value-added measures based on standardized narrow the curriculum and work against creativity, innovation and intrinsic motivation (Drive by Daniel Pink) ·  Requiring administrators to evaluate every teacher for at least 30 minutes twice every year will increase administrative costs and mean that more money is spent on administrative costs instead of less. ·  According to University of Washington economist Dan Goldhaber, about 60% of student achievement is attributable to non-school factors, such as family income and poverty—factors that the teacher cannot control ·  Research has shown that collaboration among teachers improves the quality of instruction, but merit-pay systems based on standardized test scores for the students of individual teachers creates incentives opposed to collaboration and cooperation ·  Merit pay based on standardized tests punishes teachers for working with students who have disabilities or are disadvantaged
Myth: “Charter schools outperform traditional public schools.”	FACT: • According to a 2009 Stanford University study, only 17% of charter schools perform better than public schools while 37% of charter schools perform worse (Stanford University CREDO Study) • According to 2006 Ohio state report cards, 1 in 2 charter schools were either in academic emergency or academic watch, while only 1 in 11 traditional public school buildings were in academic emergency or academic watch (Stanford University CREDO Study in Ohio) • Three out of four public schools are rated excellent or effective, while only one in six charter schools are rated excellent or effective (Ohio Department of Education)
Sources Online: www.americansocietytoday.blogspot.com

  This is a link to a sheet that explains facts about Ohio Senate Bill 5. I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the development of this document. Feel free to share it, download it and pass it along.

On Scribd:
Myths vs Facts on Ohio Senate Bill 5

On Google Docs:
Myths vs. Facts on Ohio Senate Bill 5

Thoughts on the Failure of Merit Pay

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This was posted by Diane Ravitch on Education Week on April 6, 2011.

"It is curious that teachers vigorously oppose merit pay, even though they are the ones who are supposed to reap the rewards. What do they know? They know that merit pay undermines collaboration and teamwork. They know that it corrupts the culture of the school.

Here are a few readings that I have found useful.
Andrea Gabor wrote an opinion piece recently for Education Week that describes what she learned from the work of W. Edwards Deming, the eminent business consultant. I learned a lot by reading her book The Man Who Discovered Quality, about Deming's philosophy. Chapter 9 summarizes Deming's strong opposition to merit ranking and merit pay. Bottom line: It is bad for corporations. It gets everyone thinking about what is good for himself or herself and leads to forgetting about the goals of the organization. It incentivizes short-term thinking and discourages long-term thinking.

Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational explains why money is not as good a motivator as a sense of purpose. Ariely is an economist of human behavior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he has demonstrated again and again that people will work harder for idealistic reasons than for a promise of money. He warns of the danger of shifting education from "social norms" to "market norms." This is precisely what the corporate reformers want to do.
And then there is Daniel Pink, who has written Drive and also created a delightful YouTube video, to reinforce the view that a sense of purpose, the desire to make a difference, is a better motivator than cash on the table.

Merit pay is the idea that never works and never dies."

Diane Ravitch

Read the Full Article:
"Thoughts on the Failure of Merit Pay"