Obama Heeds to the Two Percent Solution
Posted at 11:21 am on Tuesday, March 10, 2009, in Uncategorized, and tagged education, obama, two-percent.
Wow. At first glance, I am in love with the president’s education plan — expanding charter schools, merit pay for teachers, and extending the school year — a lot of which comes from the Two Percent Solution (of which Obama is a student). Additionally, hazard pay for teachers (inner-City schools) should be included. I am in favor of all these ideas, especially moving towards full-year schooling; an agrarian-based school calendar is well past its prime.
Taking the teacher unions head-on will be difficult, but with a huge head of steam — and a wave of popularity and support — the president’s time to tackle the issue is clearly now. There is no inherent benefit to students from teacher unions. If there were, it would be much easier to dismiss failing teachers. Teacher unions are exclusively for the benefit of teachers. Any statement to the contrary is conjecture.
Teacher unions are wrong on merit pay and charter schools. I hope the democratic president can force the democratic stronghold of union teachers to see through their long-standing haze of misinformation.
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March 10th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
So how is merit pay determined? Don’t tell me thru the test scores of students…we’re already turning out hordes of pupils best at test-taking, not learning. Charter schools merely take $$ away from public schools. This is nothing but union-busting. No one is calling for merit pay down at my police station where all are union members Same with prison guards, pilots, state troopers, etc. etc.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:08 am
one of the pitfalls of current government or public work is that there is no incentive to do better, be better. A lazy teacher gets paid the same as a very hardworking teacher. A good cop gets paid the same as a bad one. There are many benefits working for the government or public sector but this “no incentive” set up is part of the growing problem with our schools. I don’t know exactly how to determine whats worthy of “merit pay” but it is a good idea. My wife works as a teacher at a private school. Her salary and benefits are lower than at most public schools and she cannot get any tenure or pension…….but, since she works very hard and is bright, she is rewarded with yearly salary increases and promotions. There should be able to be some sort of happy medium here??
March 11th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
i am a good teacher. i am a hardworking teacher. i bust my assssss everyday and work all sorts of extra hours. in addition, i am in a school that would definitely qualify for hazard pay.
merit-based pay scares me because the people who are supposed to watch me and make sure i do a good job don’t have the time to evaluate me effectively. unless we hire more administrators- on individual school and district levels- it is hard to have merit-pay work. i was ousd’s high school teacher of the year last year, but i don’t know if the people in charge of my school at the district even know that, and it’s that kind of distance that causes me to doubt.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
also, teachers’ unions, despite my enormous hatred of my own, DO exist to serve our interests because otherwise we get totally taken advantage of. there is an expectation that since we “do it for the kids,” it means we should be willing to do WHATEVER it takes, however unreasonable. if i need my lunch time protected or to be insulated from bullshit lawsuits because i taught david sedaris stories (and he’s a homosexual…) or because i wore my obama shirt to work, i’m somewhat comforted knowing someone will have my back. all teachers need unions. shitty teachers just abuse them.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
jeff- we need to be able to edit comments. now i’m just making an idiot out of myself.
the last part about merit pay stinking for me is that i teach kids who don’t care. there are SOME who i can motivate enough to perform on the tests, but if my test scores don’t rise, it is not necessarily because i didn’t teach them. we can’t force kids to take tests, and when you have nothing but testing to do for 6 hours a day for an entire week, someone’s scores are going to hurt; usually the subjects that come at the end of that week.
until the kids reap more instant results from their test scores, they will continue to hold too much meaning for the adults in education and not enough meaning for the students, who are ultimately responsible for their performance. when i was in high school, the state offered $1000/year for students who scored in the top 10% of their age group in the state. something like this being reinstated would definitely motivate at least SOME students.
finally, pay needs to START higher, not just raise faster in some cases. we cannot attract capable, intelligent, innovative people to the classroom because our starting pay cannot compete with the private sector. the amount of people of color entering teaching nearly halves itself each year as those with degrees enter the business world instead of the poorhouse. math and science are always hurting because you can make a lot more money as an engineer, accountant, lab scientist, or other private job than you can putting up with 150 annoying high school kids each day with work that is constantly following you home.
there are a million problems with how teachers get paid and i pray to the god i don’t believe in that obama’s team studies the situation carefully and closely before acting too quickly. even NCLB’s heart was in the right place, but unless the plan is realistic, it doesn’t matter.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
@aly – Increased starting pay for teachers is a big part of the Two Percent Solution, including $200k for inner-city math and science teachers. What about that as a starting point for union negotiations?