I teach in a very rural school. 33% of the children in my building are on free and reduced lunch. We are a title one school that receives help from the state. I have several children in my classroom who come from very difficult home lives. Their parents are either not involved in their life or they are constantly working to provide for them. Regardless of these children’s up bringing they come to me for about 8 hours a day to be taught. I have no control over what happens from 4pm-8am, but I do control 8am-4pm. I am a teacher. I have chosen a profession that I don’t leave at 5:00 every day. I often bring work home with me, stay late or arrive early. Being a teacher requires a lot out of you.
We can’t control what students we have in our classes each year-we can however make the best out of what we are given. I say this because news travels fast. I currently teach in King William County, a neighboring county-Henrico County, just recently received an incentive grant they are offering to 8 of their counties schools. Each teacher (core subject areas and special education) are being offered an $8000 incentive for student achievement. If their students are successful on their standardized test then they will receive a bonus check of $8000.
Check out these two links to learn more about the grants they received and the schools that qualify.
http://www.whiteheadchioccalaw.com/blog/new-incentives-for-teachers-in-henrico-county.cfm
http://www.henrico.k12.va.us/Newsroom/NewsReleases/2010-11/101510A.html
Now I have some questions for you. Is this a fair program? It appears to be offered only to the lower schools in the county. If we as teachers can’t control who is placed in our classrooms then is it fair to offer monetary incentives to certain schools? Certain teachers?
I truly have no set opinion on this matter. I think an $8000 incentive for student’s achievement is something I would bust my tail to get. Who wouldn’t want that extra pocket change? However it is my firm belief that all children can be successful-but can all children be successful on an SOL?
Do you think the counties are offering this money trying to simply keep “great” teachers in these buildings? What is your take on this?
I teach in a school very much like the schools that qualify for these programs but our county didn’t receive this grant?
What if some of these schools don’t have the resources, staff members and even technology that other successful schools have? Is this an even playing field? I have teacher friends at two of these schools and they both teach collaborative classes. Both qualify for the money and both have said-I’m giving it my all because it’s such a great incentive, however I have some kids that I am just not sure if they are going to make it. I do know that if you are hired in Henrico County you aren’t allowed to change schools until you have completed three years at your hired school-then you may request a transfer.
Any comments on this?
That was one heavy duty post, Jessica. Education has always been something that is important to me and my family. I have been around these questions and concerns most of my life. As an adult, I have begun to understand the physical and emotional stress that comes along with being a teacher, especially in a school where most children don't have a lot to begin with.
ReplyDeleteI have somewhat mixed feelings about linking student achievement with teacher salary. Yes, everyone would love to get paid more, especially teachers. However, to place that responsibility on a student seems unethical in my eyes. I have a family full of teachers and counselors, so even though my own personal experience cannot say "that's why I teach," but I do know I can speak on behalf of my mother and father to say they are not in it for the money, nor do I think they would ever be. It takes a special kind of person to be a teacher. Do I think these teachers in Henrico County are bad? Absolutely not, but I do think things might need to be re-evaluated.
I agree that testing is not the best way to grade a student. I think every student learns differently and at a different pace. I do not think a standardized test is an ample example about how intellectual a student is. I say this mostly because I have never been good at testing, but excellent in other aspects of school such as papers, projects, group work, etc. If we want students to succeed there needs to be multiple opportunities to get there. I do not believe having one standard (such as an SOL) is fair nor accurate. It is impossible.
Therefore, I do not know really how I feel about money to schools. In one way, there will always be schools that never get that grant or that $8,000. On the other hand, what's stopping you from not encouraging faculty and staff to get a grant for your school, especially if you need it? I think in the end, the best experience a teacher can offer its students is through education in the classroom.
This is a difficult subject. People don't get into teaching for the money, but they've got mortgages, bills, kids, car payments etc... like everyone else. Money is a great incentive, especially if it means being able to hold on to your best teachers.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I've taught under a bonus system before, though quite different from the one described here. I had a base salary, and could earn an extra $100, $300, or $500 a month based on the percentage of my students I retained from month to month (it was a private language institute and not a public school). One thing that really bothered me about the bonus system was how subjective it was. Because of my experience, I taught mostly Business English with high intermediate or advanced level students. Most of my students were adults with families and full time jobs. If they could find the time (or get their company to pay for it) they'd come in for a few weeks to maintain their English levels, then leave again. For this reason, most of the Business classes we offered were refresher type courses to help with specific vocabulary or situations. Compare this with other teachers at the school who were given the beginner students precisely because they were new or inexperienced. Most of their students were housewives with nothing better to do during the day while their husbands were at work and their kids in school. Their daily English lesson was a part of their routine along with shopping, hair appointments, and spa treatments (or whatever else rich housewives do with their time). While I hardly ever got the retention bonus, they did! Was it because they were working harder or teaching better? Probably not. It had more to do with the students in their class than the teaching methods or effort. Say I jumped from 50% retention one month to 75% the next month (an extra $100!), back down to 50%... does this mean the month in the middle I was a better teacher than the other two?
So that's where I feel an incentive system like this might cause more harm than good. If you're worried about keeping your best teachers, why not just offer them a raise? If the money is available, and you know they're good teachers, why wait for the test scores to confirm it before handing out the bonus checks? And if they're slacking and need a couple grand to motivate them to work harder and care more, they probably shouldn't have the job in the first place.
I also taught in a public school for a year. My job was to teach the same English conversation lesson to 22 different classes every week. Same teacher, same lesson, different students, 22 times a week. Somehow, the results were different for each class. Some classes made me feel like a genius, others made me feel like quitting and never coming back.
I too have mixed feelings. I am glad to see that Henrico is trying to hire and retain quality teachers, and it is awesome that they now have the resources to do so.
ReplyDeleteMy problem however, is that I feel like school has become very performance based. Everything is geared to the children passing the SOL but the process of their learning is being somewhat forsaken. Passing an SOL is not an indicator of how much one knows, it could really just be a reflection of quality test taking skills. As a former student in Virginia public schools, I learned how to memorize my way to passing a test instead of actually learning. Six years ago, most of what I was taught was preparation for the SOL. The SOL dictated everything.
With this new incentive my only concern is that the class will be even more rigid in the curriculum. On a different note, there are many benefits to this grant. Teachers will work harder to see their students succeed and I am sure that they will bring new, innovative ideas to the classroom. As far as whether or not this is fair for teachers in other counties or schools within HCPS, I cannot say. While the bonus is good, I am sure that it will require tons of work! I would like to think teaches are already trying to see each of their students succeed despite the incentive or the lack there of.
I have mixed feelings about this as well. Without a doubt good teachers deserve higher pay. I have an issue with the funds being reserved for only 4 prioritized subjects, as well as student performance as a measure of the teachers success. Many of the lessons I remember from my early teachers had nothing to do with subject matter. My love of learning, how to treat others with a different opinion, ways of bringing my individual gifts to a team project and problem solving were all skills learned from excellent teachers working on student growth and development, rather than test scores. As Kendra stated, great teachers are not in their chosen careers for the money. I am concerned that financial pressure on the teacher competing for these funds could lead to unreasonable pressure on students for performance. I think performance-based pay would be fine if it were judged on the performance of the instructor, rather than the student's test scores. Until functional criteria is developed for this kind of judgment, I feel the money should be distributed evenly to all the teachers.
ReplyDeleteJanis brings up a good point about functional criteria for performance assessment. How would you go about doing this when schools, principals, teachers, and students all differ in at least some unique way. Not familiar with Henrico County Public Schools (HCPS) or the Community Training and Technical Assistance Center (CTAC), who is to provide assistance, training, and consultation to the incentive initiative but wonder what their definition of student achievement would be. On the HCPS website and more specially the second link Jessica listed it states,
ReplyDelete"The incentive compensation for teachers includes up to $3,000 for creating an engaging learning environment based in the school division’s teaching standards and an additional $5,000 for meeting individual student learning targets on state and local assessments."
Wonder how they would define an engaging learning environment and how individual student targets are generated. Is it all based on successfully meeting the SOLs? Is it based on percent improvement on SOLs compared to the previous year or semester (similar to what Stephen was sharing)? Would the definition be the same for all schools? all teachers? all counties? Or would each school/principal develop their own criteria that would be approved by the CTAC? or some other group? Looking over how assessment is spelled out in the plan would be an interesting read.
Also, I wonder how much competition this incentive would create amongst the staff and the effect it would have on their work relationships.
Not a teacher, so fill free to fill me in or comment on my thoughts.
Incentives always raise red flags for me, no matter what. Is the person who wants the incentive going after the incentive itself, or achieving the goal with the incentive as a bonus? Although I believe most people have good intentions, sadly there are those who do not. When I read this post I immediately thought of those teachers who would be more focused on getting this incentive by any means possible. Would they overwork their students? Would they encourage cheating to pass the tests?
ReplyDeleteSecondly I have a problem with these "standards of learning" tests. I think they poorly gage how much a student has actually learned. I'm HORRIBLE at multiple choice tests. I much rather sit and have a conversation or write a paper to show what I know. Although I think these tests and this incentive programs have good intentions, I think there needs to be a more versatile and more varied attempt at gauging what students have actually learned.
I agree with the point Austin brought up concerning those teachers that would be more focused on getting the incentive, regardless of what it took to reach this goal. Overworking students and placing unreasonable pressures on them is never acceptable, especially when controversy will inevitably arise if this is occurring in an area where these grants/incentives are being offered.
ReplyDeleteI understand these incentives are coming from good intentions, but also have my negative opinions on how they are gauging student learning retention, SOL testing, from my experiences growing up in Virginia. I can remember having to take the Standards of Learning test in the third grade...really? Third grade? I understand that it is never too early to start with more advanced academic concepts--starting at a younger age usually assists in better memory retention of the information being delivered. However, I do not think SOL testing falls into this category.
As many others have said, the course curriculum slowly started to evolve into solely preparing for the SOL tests, leaving behind important life lessons and really teaching students; instead, we were taught how to take tests, specific to the guidelines of the SOLs our teachers had. This is not the educational experience students should be focusing on. I am, too, not a great test taker. Many students like myself have test anxiety, although this does not mean we are incompetent as students. Gauging student knowledge retention should be more open to other ways of finding out how much a student has learned rather than the simply the standardized test schools are issued and teachers pass out, crossing their fingers that their students test well.
To wrap this up, I do think that these incentive programs are coming from a good place. It is just important to consider the following things for the future: teachers' intentions, the pressure students may face, and possibilities of other "testing" methods to loosen course curriculums back up from the SOL format many have taken on.
I also want to note that I am not saying most teachers do not do their jobs for the right reasons. It does take a special kind of person to perform this job, and I respect them immensely! It is just necessary to consider the few outliers that do always exist that may take advantage of this opportunity for the wrong reasons.