I originally started this blog as a coping mechanism to deal with the absurdity coming out of the Florida Legislature and its wacky implementation in the Miami Dade County school system. After six months in North Carolina, Florida is starting to seem like a bastion of sanity and teacher love. The latest ideas circulating at the North Carolina General Assembly regarding how to reform the teaching profession certainly makes one wonder what exactly is in the water supply in Raleigh? Is it some brain eating teacher-hating amoeba? Or perhaps some chemical contamination laced with teacher hate? Apparently last year’s legislation to end tenure, abolish pay for advanced degrees, and reward the top 25% of teachers with a $500 raise only if they give up tenure four years early was not insulting enough. The highlights of this year’s 60/30/10 plan include: paying teachers on a per pupil basis, establishing career tracks, forcing all teachers to reapply for their jobs, and the ultimate kick in the wazoo, mandatory retirement after 20 years of service.
Allow Kafkateach to briefly deconstruct each one of these brain farts:
- The “Android Super Teacher Capable of Rescuing the Minds of Countless Number of Students” model. Ah…the Industrial Revolution has finally caught up with the teaching profession. Efficiency above all else, dang it. Why should we pay a teacher who is capable of managing 50 students in a room at a time the same amount that we pay weaker teachers who might actually be interesting in learning your child’s name?
“Let’s allow a capable and willing teacher who has “flipped” his or her classroom to increase class sizes and teach more classes. The solution to the education problem becomes fewer core area teachers, each with more students – reallocating the salaries of a few traditional teaching positions toward the teachers who are willing and able to serve additional students.” http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2014/01/21/latest-nc-teacher-compensation-plan-would-significantly-reduce-education-spending-encourage-teacher-turnover/#sthash.S7IobRfw.dpuf
The idea of paying teachers extra for teaching more students is not new and is currently implemented in Miami Dade County where teachers are paid a supplement for teaching an extra class. As a teacher who has enjoyed receiving the supplement for teaching an extra period, I am not opposed to this plan as long as there are class size limitations and maximum student loads. Otherwise, teachers and administrators will be motivated to smash as many little bodies in a room as possible in order to receive extra payment. Teachers will also have no planning periods under this model. I have turned down the extra pay knowing that I would not be able to properly do my job and maintain my sanity without a planning period. Therefore, I must not be a “capable” teacher and be banished to “Apprentice” career status with the slave wage of $32,000. Which brings me to teacher career tracks aspect of this plan.
- The “Apprentice, Master, Career” model, AKA the 60/30/10 plan. Under this caste system, 60% of North Carolina would be determined to be worthy of “Apprentice” status and earn a $32,000 a year salary. After three years of teaching, taking a mandatory online training program (hmm… I wonder which big testing company might benefit from that juicy government contract?), and demonstrating effective teaching based on “customer survey data” 30% of teachers may be promoted to Master teacher status. I guess little five-year old students and moody adolescents will become the “customers” deciding the fate of their Apprentice teachers? The lucky (and perhaps politically connected) ten percent of teachers will be worthy of being “Career” status teachers and earn $72,000 if they have an advanced degree and take on leadership positions. Huh? Didn’t they just eliminate pay based on advanced degrees last year? Of course, for this 60/30/10 caste system to be implemented all teachers will have to reapply for their jobs.
- The “You Thought You Had a Job” model. Only people who have applied for a job in a public school district know the horrific layers of bureaucracy that must be navigated in order to make $32,000 a year. Applying for certification, ordering transcripts, thirty pages of a paperwork, in Charlotte Mecklenburg a fifty page psychological survey (pick C), drug testing, finger printing …etc. I avoided the teaching profession for many years just because of my disdain for bureaucracy. How exactly will the bureaucrats handle every teacher in North Carolina reapplying for their job at the same time? I sent in transcripts and paperwork for a North Carolina license six months ago and still haven’t received anything. Once these teachers have reapplied and hopefully been given the same job back, 60 percent of them will have to be booted down to Apprentice level. What if by some miracle an 18-year veteran teacher has managed to earn $50,000 in the state of North Carolina? Do they get knocked down to $32,000 after they reapply for their job? Notice I deliberately wrote “18 year veteran” teacher. I wanted to write “20 year veteran” teacher but there won’t be any 20 year veteran teachers in the state of North Carolina if this legislation gets passed.
- The “You Better Die Young” model. Even those lucky enough to be labeled a “Career” teacher will find themselves without a career after 20 years of service in North Carolina. All teachers must retire after 20 years of teaching (will they immediately receive a pension?). What exactly is the justification for kicking out your most experienced workers? I know supermodels, Hollywood actresses, and professional athletes have expiration dates on their careers. But those people also make millions of dollars and if they invest wisely they can sustain themselves once they are past their prime. While $72,000 is a comfortable salary, it certainly won’t last anyone past their twenty years of service. Your 20 year veteran teacher is most likely to be in their early forties if they were stupid enough to go into teaching after graduating from college because they had some godforsaken “calling” or “love for children” and they will most likely be saddled with the burden of caring for young children and possibly aging parents at the same time. This leaves little time for launching a new career path in the middle of your life.
Let’s just hope if any of this backwater nonsense manages to pass the General Assembly this summer that whatever happens in North Carolina stays in North Carolina.
***Update*** The author of the 60/30/10 plan, Lodge McKammon, has come out as saying this was part of a private discussion and was not meant to be shared publicly. Note to Mr. McKammon, any idea brainstormed in private that you are embarrassed to share publicly is most likely a bad idea. http://dianeravitch.net/2014/01/22/author-of-nc-proposal-responds/. Let’s just hope these ideas stay in whatever dark cave they were brainstormed in.
***Update #2***The author has stated that they have removed the 20 year automatic termination and career implosion mandate. I guess on second thought and probably with an abundance of negative feedback, forced retirement after 20 years seemed a bit harsh.
Forget the 60-30-10 —
100% of teachers (Compos Mentis) will leave NC (Non Compos) just as soon as they can find comfortable shoes.
Don’t ask Obama … he’s still looking for his …
Your comment is comical considering the affiliation of North Carolina’s Governor. North Carolinians elected a Republican governor and it is still Obama’s fault?
You can’t really tell the neo-cons from the neo-libs anymore without an Al-Gore-Rhythm …
It is getting weirder and weirder. As my mother always says, “They are leading the parade without a baton”. I am still teaching in Florida and planning an escape at the end of this year. Who in their right mind would want to be a teacher? Don’t let your children grow up to be TEACHERS!
My daughter wants to be a teacher. She is a junior in college, and she is in the last cohort of the NC Teaching Fellows. I can only pray that there will soon be a major turning point, and the profession will once again be a highly respected one. I am encouraging her to get her Master’s degree while she is still young.
I just hope that she will be able to complete her four years of service to NC. The problem is the more I read, the more I wonder if there are any states that VALUE what we teachers do, what we really do.
As a young teacher, I would definitely suggest she go all the way through and get her masters. Try to wait it out while all of this crap gets sorted out. As a fifth year teacher who hates their job, it may be difficult but she will be able to persevere and serve back her four years for teaching fellows. The good news is that she has more options with her masters if she finishes her four years and decides it’s not what she wants to do. I did not get my masters and next fall I will once again enroll in the university I graduated from and get another undergrad degree. I plan on leaving the teaching field. If I can make it through five years I know she can make it through four years.
[…] teacher deconstructed the proposal to change compensation for teachers in North Carolina, which follows on last year’s full menu […]
Teachers are a disposable commodity? Who is going to educate all of these children? This is not only a dangerous idea, we have people in charge that make terrible decisions, and then blame us for following them. So crazy.
Excellent piece. I’ve been following this “flip your classroom and take 50 students because you’re such an amazing teacher” model for a couple of years now:
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2012/05/heres_a_new_one_for.html
[…] MOOC? The Defiant Parents: Testing’s Discontents My Experience in a Turkish Gulen Charter School Message to North Carolina Teachers: We Hope You Die Young Hey, Dan Primack: Here’s why there are so few Boston-based tech reporters (wasn’t really […]
Wow! I think I must be the only teacher in NC that thinks this plan has potential. Of the things required for Master and Career status, don’t we already do these things without extra pay? In my school, some teachers come in early, stay late, differentiate instruction, build relationships with students, reflect and yield results. Others are gone by 4 and plan which worksheet to give on the drive in to work the next morning. We have to start somewhere. Let’s not pre-judge this plan.
I did say that paying teachers a supplement to teach an extra class can work. But this can only work if you establish outer limits on class size and maximum student loads. If you have a chance to read the “About” section of my blog, you will see that when the Florida Legislature removed class size limits from AP classes, I ended up with 54 students in one class. I’m a good teacher, but I ain’t that good. I was much less efficient in a class of 54 than 25. I wasted so much time taking attendance, passing out papers, trying to put students in groups. I could literally cover twice as much material in a class of 25. So I don’t think just paying a good teacher more money to teach 40 students at a time instead of 25 is in the best interest of the students. The irony is I ended up making less money in Florida even though I ended up with huge classes and a student load of 200 when it used to be capped at 150. With no class size limits, they didn’t have to pay me a supplement. They just shoved more kids in the room.
Speaking of prejudgement, I hate it when people prejudge teachers who leave the building at 4! I always left the building by 4 because A) I worked an extra job to make ends meet as many teachers do B) I had to attend classes for my Master’s degree C) I’ve got kids I need to pick up from school. I always took papers home with me to grade and worked through lunch and my planning instead of socializing. Just because a teacher spends longer hours inside the school building does not make them a better teacher. Maybe they just don’t use their time very efficiently during the school day or they have no life or commitments outside of the school building. Rant over.
As a lifelong NC resident who once held a high school teacher certification and holds the teaching profession in great esteem, what’s going on in NC government these days is disgusting and appalling. We once had great public schools. But apparently not great enough to teach enough of our citizens how to vote with intelligence. Or, just perhaps, our current right-wing know nothing majority came mostly from up nawth, from places like New Jersey, for the alleged abundant jobs around Cary, and fast talked their way into various cushy gubment positions where they could then align themselves with the racist Helms remnant which will seeth forever just east of Smithfield and the I-95 line. You doubt? Our Governor, while he did live in Charlotte, is from Ohio.
Have you watched the first season of House of Cards? I don’t have much time to watch television, but last summer I made it through this Netflix series. Disgusting and probably much closer to what really happens in the government than we want to believe. Education was thrown around like a joke, and people who know nothing about how to do it properly are making all the decisions now. I hate to say it, but I worry that nothing will change for the better in the near future because teachers are too busy teaching to become legislators.
My husband is a huge fan of House of Cards. He told me about some episode where teachers were protesting education reforms but then someone bought them a bunch of doughnuts and it shut them up.
Dear FB,
New Jersey pays teachers relatively well (median salary a few years ago was $62,000. Massachusetts surpasses NJ on many factors but generally we have respectable national rankings. So most folks who moved to NC would support your great public schools. (NC’s latest choice for state commissioner of education may not be the best for great public schools–his oldest daughter was enrolled at Harpeth Hall, a private school.) We haven’t had a Republican senator in decades, so NJ transplants likely weren’t Helms types. The folks I knew who moved to NC were attracted by reasonable real estate, milder climate.
Article writing is also a excitement, if you
be familiar with then you can write or else it is complex to write.
I simply couldn’t depart your web site prior to suggesting that I actually loved the usual info a person supply for your guests? Is gonna be again continuously in order to check up on new posts. kaacecbcgkfg
Your weblog is 1 of a kind, i really like the way you organize the topics. bdbackefdkdf
Zombie Lending And Depressed Restructuring In Japan 2008
… – Unexplained headaches, digestive problems, and situation too many responsibilities that could ruin your life. One could say that the consumption of these reasons, your treatment… Message to North Carolina Teachers: We Hope You Die Young … …