How do parents & teachers feel about this bill?

[taylor1293]

Yeah, my sis is one of a kind LOL.. She's also not a union member and she tells me her principal isn't unhappy with it either.

Over half the staff I work with are not members of the union. I think it's a misconception that the majority of teachers are union members. It simply isn't true.

Her principal wouldn't be...it doesn't affect the principal (or their salary) at all.

 

[LisaR]

Yeah, my sis is one of a kind LOL.. She's also not a union member and she tells me her principal isn't unhappy with it either.

She is a public school teacher in FL and she isn't part of the union? I never knew there was an option to opt out. Are all the other teachers in her school part of the union?

 

[taylor1293]

She is a public school teacher in FL and she isn't part of the union? I never knew there was an option to opt out. Are all the other teachers in her school part of the union?

In my district you don't have to opt out, you just simply don't join .

 

[joviroxx]

As a teacher in the state of Florida, so far, I'd say your sister is the lone teacher supporter.

Anyway, as a teacher in Florida, we are assessed by all the methods you have already read about from the other teachers who have posted here. In addition, at my school we are required attend a minimum of 2 hours of meetings a week and attend trainings in our content area on Saturday's/evenings throughout the school year.

We also must participate in all family nights, attend student functions, etc. It's all part of being a team player. And no, they can't truly "require" those additional after hours activities, but our principal does note them on our formal evaluations. .

As for this bill being good because it's impossible to make a case against poor performance (which I disagree with). They are punishing the whole, for the sins of a handful.

But lesson plans, attending activities, etc are procedures, right? How does the fact that you submit your plans and go to trainings effectively grade your teaching proficiency? How is your actual interaction with children and your teaching ability evaluated?

As far as formal evaluations, from what I understand, and maybe Im wrong, do teachers not need to be notified of when this might happen? Seems like it would be easy to prepare for one day. Im not sure I see the problem with following childrens progress as a reflection of teaching ability. Its not about making sure that they are at a specific level, but that they are progressing. Teachers aren't being "punished" for kids not being at a specific level, the school is. All this legislation is asking is that the teacher can have children progress within the confines of their environment.


Im not trying to be arbitrary or difficult, and certainly don't wish to sound condecending or without respect to teachers, but I have many employees, no matter how well they follow procedures, just are not effective when putting it all into practice.

Just to add.. I have a great respect for teachers. Ive seen the things my sister has endured from teaching , right out of college, in high crime, low income areas, to dealing with parents in high income areas who think their kids should just be handed things. The politics, the parents and even the joys. I think teachers deserve so much more credit and yes, money, than they get. They are our backbone.

 

[joviroxx]

She is a public school teacher in FL and she isn't part of the union? I never knew there was an option to opt out. Are all the other teachers in her school part of the union?

Its not an option to opt out.. You just don't need to be. It isn't a requirement.

 

[LisaR]

In my district you don't have to opt out, you just simply don't join .

Thanks for the info. I honestly did not know this was possible. Are there any statistics regarding how many teachers are unionized vs. the number that aren't (but could be if they wanted to)?

 

[taylor1293]

But lesson plans, attending activities, etc are procedures, right? How does the fact that you submit your plans and go to trainings effectively grade your teaching proficiency? How is your actual interaction with children and your teaching ability evaluated?

As far as formal evaluations, from what I understand, and maybe Im wrong, do teachers not need to be notified of when this might happen? Seems like it would be easy to prepare for one day. Im not sure I see the problem with following childrens progress as a reflection of teaching ability. Its not about making sure that they are at a specific level, but that they are progressing. Teachers aren't being "punished" for kids not being at a specific level, the school is. All this legislation is asking is that the teacher can have children progress within the confines of their environment.


Im not trying to be arbitrary or difficult, and certainly don't wish to sound condecending or without respect to teachers, but I have many employees, no matter how well they follow procedures, just are not effective when putting it all into practice.

Just to add.. I have a great respect for teachers. Ive seen the things my sister has endured from teaching , right out of college, in high crime, low income areas, to dealing with parents in high income areas who think their kids should just be handed things. The politics, the parents and even the joys. I think teachers deserve so much more credit and yes, money, than they get. They are our backbone.

I don't feel like you are trying to be difficult at all...just curious .

I agree, someone can follow procedures and not be effective. We are evaluated on our effectiveness by our informal an formal observations. Formal are the announced, the ones I can prepare for. Informal are the ones where I look up and there they are in my room with the clipboard, lol! There are also beginning, middle, and end of year assessments the students take. Administration looks at these to determine if you were effective in specific areas.

I'm not totally opposed to performance based as a percentage of my salary. I think 5% would be reasonable. 50% is ridiculous! Telling me that $21,000 of my income a year will depend a few assessments is insane! Also, who is determining the validity and reliability of these assessments?

What about the students who don't progress? The ones that I have done everything possible to build their knowledge and understanding. Since I started teaching, I have had countless students who have missed 15+ days, have had parents in jail, have had parents on drugs, even students who have been homeless, etc. I have kids fall asleep all the time in class because they have no bedtime and go to bed at midnight or 1:00. But now, I'm responsible for their children progressing (or I lose my income, my way to survive)...where is the parent responsbility? Who is holding them accountable? No one is. It's all on the teacher, it's all our responsibility. It simply doesn't make sense.

 

[taylor1293]

You're welcome . I honestly have no idea, there probably are statistics, but I wouldn't know where to find them! I just know that at my school more than 50% are not members of the union.

Thanks for the info. I honestly did not know this was possible. Are there any statistics regarding how many teachers are unionized vs. the number that aren't (but could be if they wanted to)?

 

[KiminChicago]

I work as a substitute teacher in our school district and I'm often assigned to the "special" classrooms (SpecEd, BD, LD, ESL) so there's often another teacher or aide in the classroom. It's really eye-opening to talk to these teachers -- they are so frustrated with NCLB, I can't even imagine how they'd react to having their pay tied to test scores. There was one second grade bilingual classroom with a child who had come in at the beginning of the year only able to read 3 words. This child was now able to read 30 words, a 1000% increase. However, a second grader is expected to be able to read 60 words, so this student is considered to be underperforming. Since this same scenario is played out with many of the students at this school, the school is currently on the watch list.

These teachers are doing the best they can and actually affecting a huge change, but it doesn't count because there is a cookie cutter approach to measuring progress. The only way I'd be in favor of merit pay is if they looked at each individual classroom and evaluated it as a stand-alone entity, with each student's progress measured. But can you imagine the overhead that would add to the budgets of already overstrapped districts? It would be so much easier to use just the measurements on the standardized tests, which don't really show progress at all.....

 

[joviroxx]

. Since I started teaching, I have had countless students who have missed 15+ days, have had parents in jail, have had parents on drugs, even students who have been homeless, etc. I have kids fall asleep all the time in class because they have no bedtime and go to bed at midnight or 1:00. But now, I'm responsible for their children progressing (or I lose my income, my way to survive)...where is the parent responsbility? Who is holding them accountable? No one is. It's all on the teacher, it's all our responsibility. It simply doesn't make sense.

I agree with you. Ive always said that teaching can be one the most thankless careers out there and really admire teachers, like you, who are dedicated to their kids. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to hit so many brick walls while you are trying to do your job.

You know my kids are in Catholic school and I,myself, went to Catholic schools all my life. I really don't have experience with public school systems so I probably just shouldn't be commenting on what I don't know.

All I know is education in this country is failing too many of our kids. I hear plenty of blame going around. Everyone gets it from teachers, administrators, state governments, federal governments, parents. Everyone has different opinions on what needs to be done. I just hope somehow, anything can help improve and give our kids better chances. What should that something be? I guess that is the $20,000 question.

 

[daughtersrus]

Well, since it looks like this thing will become reality, I'm hoping that they make adjustments and tweak it to actually make sense. I have no problem being evaluated on my performance, but evaluate me on things I can control.

I can teach a lesson 10 different ways to help a child understand and even bribe them, but there is always one child every year who either has no motivation/interest to learn OR a child with poor attendance. I always try everything I can to motivate that child and never give up, but if some of the parents don't place an importance on school to motivate the child or even get them to school, how is the child supposed to learn? How can a child receive a quality education and make gains when his/her parents allow them to be absent 1-3 days a week? These situations need to also be addressed by the state as it is not just the teachers' fault.

There was a thread on here very recently here from a parent that didn't think that working on school work at home was important for the lower grades so they didn't do it. I wonder how the state is going to address this type of situation. How is it the teacher's fault if parents don't think that it's important for their children to study their math facts or spelling words?

 

[golfgal]

I agree with you. Ive always said that teaching can be one the most thankless careers out there and really admire teachers, like you, who are dedicated to their kids. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to hit so many brick walls while you are trying to do your job.

You know my kids are in Catholic school and I,myself, went to Catholic schools all my life. I really don't have experience with public school systems so I probably just shouldn't be commenting on what I don't know.

All I know is education in this country is failing too many of our kids. I hear plenty of blame going around. Everyone gets it from teachers, administrators, state governments, federal governments, parents. Everyone has different opinions on what needs to be done. I just hope somehow, anything can help improve and give our kids better chances. What should that something be? I guess that is the $20,000 question.

I just can't agree with that statement, I think KIDS are failing at education not the other way around. The only kids I see failing are the ones that don't try. We have 98% of our kids go on to some kind of post secondary education, 94% are on to 4 year colleges. The ones that don't are the ones that have the attitudes, don't show up for class, don't do their homework, etc. It isn't the school's fault that the kid doesn't care. You can't make a kid care, period. So, because this very small percentage of kids are failing, the whole system is bad, nope, sorry, doesn't fly with me. Now take that into an inner city school where less then 50% of the kids even graduate and again, it's the KIDS that don't care, not the teachers. This isn't a school problem, it is a PARENT problem. If it were school problems you would see even statistics across the board with kids not succeeding-all schools would have the same percentages of kids going on to college, etc. It is simple to see that districts in low income areas are failing and districts in middle to upper class areas are succeeding. Lets address the REAL issue here and stop blaming the schools.

 

[MM27]

As far as formal evaluations, from what I understand, and maybe Im wrong, do teachers not need to be notified of when this might happen? Seems like it would be easy to prepare for one day.

We aren't told when our observations will occur. You know you are being observed in my school when the principal or one of the VPs come in with their laptop. They do a running narrative of the lesson so they type as you teach. Informal observations happen just about every day so we are aware they will be coming through, just don't know when. The only ones we are told about in advance are the Superintendent and Director of Elem Ed ones. And that is usually just announced as they are coming and they may be coming to your room. I was observed by the Superintendent last week and although I knew he would be in the building, I wasn't told in advance that he was coming to me.

I have so many people coming in and out of my classroom for different things, I don't even pay attention anymore. Between in-class support teachers, two different Title I teachers, the speech teacher, the behaviorist, CST members, my classroom would be better off with a revolving door.

I will tell you one thing though. If my pay was directly related to student performance, I would certainly put up a fight for all the things students leave class for. I have kids that miss math and reading to go to instrumental music lessons, violin lessons, chorus, talented art.

 

[Mary•Poppins]

The best teachers are given the worst behaved kids because they are "good with them."

12 years ago, this was me. I got all of the "hard to teach children" and had SERIOUS burnout. The principal put them in my class because it made his life easy.

I interviewed to be a reading specialist to get out of that mess ... but what would this mean for me or my special education colleagues? I LOVE what I do, I make a difference ... but many of my students still struggle with intense ... and I mean intense intervention. So, would I be punished while the gifted teacher enjoys all the benefits of the children she teaches?

This is truly a sad day for the profession of teaching.

 

[Mary•Poppins]

Opps ... didn't read the whole thread ... just one more thought ...

I'll take the district where I live and work as an example. The school where I work is in a low-income area. It's surrounded by apartments that are mostly inhabited by non-English speakers. Consequently, the kids at the school come in with poor or no English skills and need special programs to catch up. The population is very transient. It's not unusual for kids to come to school for a few months and suddenly disappear because the family up and moved. The school has some really great teachers and they work very hard with the kids. But the circumstances are such that the school never achieves over a certain level on standardized tests.

The school on the other side of the district is in an area of very expensive homes ($800,000 and up). Most parents in that area are college educated and hold high-level jobs. The school regularly performs very well on standardized tests. I worked at this school for three years so I am very familiar with the staff and how they teach there.

I firmly believe that you could swap the staffs of the two schools and the test scores would remain the same. There are so many other factors in student performance besides the teachers. They could be working their backsides off and still not get the results on standardized tests.

This sounds EXACTLY like my district. I worked in the lower performing school for 13 years and loved it. You actually will not find a better staff anywhere. The teachers actually had fundraisers throughout the year to pay for their own school buses for summer school ... just to get the kids to come and help them! I transferred to another school because it had earlier hours, 7-3 instead of 8-4, which worked better for my family ... and as much as I love my colleagues in my new building, they can't compare to the teachers at my previous building. If this happens in my state, you bet all those teachers will be transferring out ... and where does that leave all those children?