Schools cut teaching positions

Posted by Lindsey at 3:56 PM

It's not just parents and students on tenterhooks waiting for school placements. This week is incredibly stressful for the faculty and staff at many city schools, too. As principals hand out next year's teaching assignments, some teachers are discovering that the proposed budget cuts have left them officially "excessed" -- still employed by the DOE but without an active position. (While teachers historically had been automatically transfered, the 2006 UFT contract gave excessed educators control over their job search.)

Excessed teachers who don't -- or can't -- find a new school can spend up to two years in the "reserve pool," earning full wages and benefits, temporarily assigned to schools where the principals decide their workload. Cost to the city since 2006? $81 million. Predictably, the UFT and The New Teacher Project, which has close ties to the DOE, disagree over whether or not this policy is a waste of funds.

This year, looming budget cuts may mean even more teachers in reserve; this week, when assignments are made known, the atmosphere at many schools is tense.

Roundup of "merit pay" opinion

Posted by Philissa at 7:06 AM

As the Times notes today, reaction so far on the city's new "merit pay" program has been mixed. The Times article talks to a cast of reformers, teachers, and former teachers who think the plan is interesting but may not be effective in the way the DOE hopes. For now, I'm going to turn now to what parents and teachers are saying online.

One parent leader told us he sees the agreement as a victory for the UFT because it reduces the retirement age, unheard of in any field. And the UFT's own blog, Edwize, is predictably thrilled about the agreement, saying, "The agreements create positive, pro-active programs that address two major issues which face our schools: attracting and retaining quality educators in our schools, and creating collaborative learning environments where teachers have real voice."

But other teachers are more skeptical about both of those claims. I've seen many comments expressing skepticism that teachers will actually influence the way the money is distributed given that the the principal and his or her appointee make up half of the four-member school-based committees. In the comments on Edwize, a teacher writes, "I sit on a few different 'committees in my school.' The meetings all follow the same formula. My principal tells us what she/he plans on doing and we get to nod approval."

NYC Educator, who opposes the current UFT leadership in general, writes that teachers have paid twice for the change in pension structure, which the UFT indicated was on the horizon when the union's contract was signed in 2005, but only gotten it once. Some, such as Jim Horn on School Matters, have picked up on the line in the original Times article that said the plan would "allow [UFT head Randi] Weingarten, a potential candidate to lead the national American Federation of Teachers, to cast herself as a reform-minded union leader" to support their claims that the new deal is not necessarily good for teachers, even though it was negotiated by the woman charged with advocating for them.

And some teachers are simply speechless.

What do parents think? Again on Edwize, the head of ACORN's education committee, a parent, writes, "The plan isn’t merit pay. It’s $20 million for 200 of New York’s lowest performing schools." She also writes that the program is a "savvy investment" that will pay off big in terms of teacher retention for good teachers.

But NYC Public School Parents criticizes the plan's dependence on test scores as practically the only determinant of bonus eligibility, saying it will lead to corruption at the school level. The parents' blog also weighs in on the pension issue, noting that the agreement will give an incentive for the most experienced teachers to retire.

From the policy angle, it's a question whether the plan is actually a form of merit pay at all. Judging from the language in today's article, the Times appears to have concluded that it is not, drawing on merit pay proponent Eric Hanushek's quote in the Post, where he said, "This is just group rewards." (The Post and the Daily News, however, enthusiastically continue to call it a merit pay plan, leading NYC Educator to write sarcastically, "If the Post and the News both like it, it must be great for teachers.")

On the internet, big questions seem to be getting lost a little in the pitched discussion over contract details and philosophies of education. Will the plan make a difference in spreading good teachers across the city? Will it entice good teachers to move to low-performing schools? Will it make bad teachers leave the field? The folks quoted in the Times article think it's too soon to tell, but that the amount of money probably is not large enough to encourage teachers to change their place of work and quality of life. One reformer told the Times the biggest benefit is that the bonus plan "sends a signal that your performance, your effort, your talent, is recognized and rewarded in this industry."

BREAKING NEWS: Mayor announces new merit pay plan for teachers

Posted by Philissa at 3:55 PM

The mayor has just announced a massive merit pay plan for the city's teachers. About 200 schools this year will be eligible for awards of up to $3,000 per teacher, with responsibility for distribution falling to school-based committees.

Corporate-minded education reformers have been promoting the idea of merit pay for teachers for years, but it hasn't gained too much traction because of opposition by teachers unions. Joel Klein hadn't been able to get a program in place here until now because of the UFT's opposition, but UFT president Randi Weingarten stood with the mayor at his press conference today, so I guess the issue has been hammered out.

All that's clear at this point is that New York City truly is the site of an educational experiment of enormous proportions and that Klein is a master at moving private funds into the public sector. We can only hope that the folks who belong to the Research Partnership for New York City Schools are able to isolate the effects of the many different incentives that are going into place to improve the performance of parents, teachers, and students. Good research could generate important information for school reformers everywhere.

UPDATE: The press release is up now at the city's website.

No end in sight to national teacher shortage

Posted by Philissa at 9:46 AM

There's been a lot of discussion in the Times this week about the nationwide shortage of qualified teachers. First, a front page article on Monday described how schools across the country compete for teachers because of high rates of teacher turnover. Then, an editorial Wednesday contended that the shortage will persist, stunting school reform efforts, "until states, localities and the federal government start paying much more attention to how teachers are trained, hired and assigned." Today, six readers offered their own solutions, ranging from higher pay to a simplification of credentialing requirements to using retired teachers on a part-time basis.

I've always been a little baffled by reporting about the teacher shortage. I haven't seen any data to suggest that the shortage is particularly worse than it has been in the past, at least since women and minorities became able to enter other fields, nor that New York fares worse than other places with a similar wealth of employment options. In general, half of all teachers leave the profession within five years. Half stay longer. In an era when young people are encouraged to try different fields before settling on one and to work before entering graduate school, a profession where half of all people who enter choose to stick with it five years later doesn't sound bad at all.

Of course, it's still worth working to recruit better teachers and then retain them -- something the Times barely touches on. The current trend in education reform is to attach financial incentives to every desirable outcome, but I'm not sure that's what makes the most sense here. It's unlikely that the incentives schools can offer can compete with the private sector -- $5,000 help for a down payment in New York City?! Ha! -- so perhaps school districts shouldn't waste their money offering them. For young people at the beginning of their careers, starting teachers' salaries and benefits in public schools aren't all that bad -- but the working conditions often are, as Dan Brown points out in his new memoir about teaching in the Bronx. To retain teachers, schools have to make sure teachers feel safe, comfortable, and free from excessive administrative requirements. Schools must also help new teachers become better faster, so they believe it's worth it to keep teaching. Investments toward those ends would benefit schools, not just individual teachers.

Merit pay for teachers: the state of the debate

Posted by Unknown at 1:30 PM

Today the New York Times published an article by Sam Dillon on the growing trend toward merit-based pay for teachers. Although Chancellor Joel Klein's plan for incentive-based teacher pay in New York City has stalled, the Times article reports that the movement is gaining steam at the national level. Dillon cites University of Wisconsin's Allan Odden, a professor of educational administration who studies teacher pay. According to Odden, the merit pay trend has now reached "critical mass," and teachers unions (whose members have historically opposed merit-based compensation) have begun to cooperate with the movement in some regions.

In New York City, Klein has wanted to implement an incentive-based compensation program since he became chancellor, but the issue has stalled over conflicts with the city's teachers union.

Despite the standoff over Klein's incentive pay proposal, merit pay did see a recent boost in New York City when a group of NYC charter schools received a federal grant for $10.5 million from the Teacher Incentive Fund. Check out the New York Sun's article for more.

For more on the state of the merit pay debate, check out the Economist's May 10 article.