Zweifel: treasure our children!

Representative Cliff Zweifel has thrown his hat in the ring for Missouri Treasurer. His statements thus far have honed in on education. The Columbia Daily Tribune has this quote from his announcement:

“I have spent my legislative career understanding how our state spends your tax dollars,” Zweifel said in a statement. “And working across party divisions to get things done. But, that’s not enough. We need a treasurer who will stand up for Missouri taxpayers. Where was Missouri’s treasurer when the Governor was raiding our higher education student loan authority (MOHELA)? She should have issued an independent actuarial analysis to tell us how students would be affected. Now, MOHELA faces its first loss in 27 years and its basic mission to help students afford college is at risk.”

Zweifel is a Democrat from Florissant, one of many Democrats running for treasurer. It seems that he aims to distinguish himself by his record on education issues.

Let explain a bit about how the state spend tax dollars in regards to special needs education: only on public school services, even though many parents of special needs children can only go to private schools because of their particularly extreme needs. Yet those parents still pay tax for a public school that is not appropriate for their child.

HB 1886 that gives a tax break on donations made to a special needs scholarship fund that would relieve parents of some of the fiscal burden garnered through educating their special needs child. Zwiefel has sponsored another bill for preschool tuition assistance, and defended it as a fiscal responsibility. The ethics of HB 1886 are quite the same: we have children in need of extra educational opportunities, and they should not be denied that if their families cannot pay for it.

Zwiefel has said he is willing to reach across party lines to get things done. I sincerely hope he will come out in support of HB 1886 and do just that.

Paid for time...

This AP story shows how Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is going to investigate education....It will be a big surprise when she tells us how great and rosy our future is...and how NCLB is on track...

"Spellings has been traveling across the country to meet with the state education boards to talk about the No Child Left Behind law. Enacted in 2001, it requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014."

Hmmm... So she is talking with education boards to get the real skinny on how to improve education?! Brilliant!! (Is she meeting with parents and teachers, too? Silly question...I see no mention of that here...)

"Missouri Education Commissioner Kent King noted that in Missouri last year, just one person graduating from college had majored in teaching physics. He said that's not uncommon. "

OUCH! (I never even considered being a teacher~I wanted to make MONEY!)

"Currently, Missouri elementary and middle school teacher requirements include a minimum 2.5 grade point average, the completion of certain classes and a minimum time spent student teaching."

Isn't a 2.5 not even a 'B' average? So our teachers just barely need to hit a C average and they need to spend time in class doing this, then they need to spend more time student teaching then they can get paid for passing more time (as opposed to actually TEACHING...We're paying barely average people to do a barely average job and we are upset that STL Public schools lost their accreditation? We need quaility teachers to begin with....this is about passing time...)

"Spellings said in a news conference afterward that low salaries also make it hard to attract people to teaching. Average teacher salaries in Missouri are among the lowest in the nation."

Okay~finally something we can all agree to. But is she going to suggest we reward teachers for advancing students? Or just meeting minimum requirements and passing time...?!

Good Long-Term Investment

In considering teachers' and administrators' pay, there is evidence that alot of money is being targeted at paying our educators. I do question who is being paid, how much they are getting paid and the criteria for which they are getting paid.

No one would argue the value of a good teacher and the impact that a quality teacher has on student performance. However the way our public education system is structured right now (thank you unions), people are being awarded for the time they've spent occupying space~teaching position~within the system. Was it the teachers' unions that established that? This system keeps the unions strong and it keeps warm bodies in place where we should have measurable incentive based merit that pays for performance. No other functioning system in our country rewards people simply for sticking around. The system now provides incentive to occupy space, not accelerate children. Only through recognizing worthy contributing individuals will we keep them around.

It takes a good two years to develop a teacher's general abilities. Studies show that after that, performance is pretty well where it is going to be. By that time, the good teachers have begun to become disenchanted with the current status quo, teach-to-the-middle, 'don't rock the boat' mentality that pervades the academic arena. So often, the good ones go out and thrive in the competing economy and the ones who can't hack it there get to remain and feed off the public dole. That is not to say that all of the teachers who stay past their 2nd year are without value~That's not it at all.

We just need to be aware of the excessive cost to train these quality teachers and then lose them. We are looking at a serious crisis in not having enough teachers in our not-so-distant future. Band-aids on the gushing wound in the form of a bonus here and there~uniformly distributed~won't solve this crisis. Investing in quality teachers to keep them in the system would go a long way in stabilizing the educational crisis in Missouri.

Beuller? or why we should reward great teachers

Ben Stein, in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, plays the character of the archetypical bad teacher. He lectures his class in a dull monotone, its effect rivaling that of any tranquillizer on the market. Rambling on about Voodoo Economics, it is as though he has cast a spell on his students. Students appear comatose. They fend off sleep. One guy has actually passed out. He drools on his desk until startled awake by the screech of Stein’s chalk scratching the board.

Though this hilarious film is over 20 years old, it still resonates with many adults and children alike. The reason is because it is comedy that conveys a reality. And the reality it conveys still very much exists today. What is funny in the film is not so funny in our schools, but the fact is that many of our schools are in large degree still populated by bad teachers like that played by Stein. Of course there are many wonderful teachers, but often they don’t stick around. Why is this so?

On Tuesday evening, at Saint Louis University, Erik A. Hanushek, a senior fellow from Stanford University, gave a lecture. Though he is an economist, with a PhD from MIT, he did not give his lecture on Voodoo Economics. Nor did he lull his audience to sleep. He did, however, as a leading expert on educational policy, speak very clearly about the quality of teachers in our schools.

“Good teachers are the one thing that can change the level of student learning and knowledge and achievement,” said Hanusheck with the caveat, “Bad teachers can also change the level of student knowledge, learning, and achievement.”

“We have a system today that does not reward good teachers. We have a system today that gives equal reward to bad teachers. Is it surprising that we might have a shortage of high quality teachers, of highly effective teachers, in the classroom?”

The fact now is that teachers are paid based on years of experience or the degree they hold.

He offered this advice: Teachers must have “pay that’s differentiated by performance and effectiveness in the classroom.”

A comedy made in the 80s should not represent the reality of our schools today. Isn’t it time we reward our good teachers, so that our children are not rendered comatose?

Keeping it real

Today, as I pulled out of the driveway, I was aware of the work the city workers must do. They clean our streets, they take our trash and recycling away, they clear the snow away so we can safely drive on the roads, and that only covers a small percentage of city workers. I can not even get into all the work the police and fire men and women do. I am really not sure of how they are paid, but I can only assume there is some sort of base pay that increases over time. These people make so many things possible for us, things we may take for granted. I remember just a few weeks ago, I was irritated my roads had not been plowed yet. But then, I have to remember there are many roads for them to clean. I hope those people get paid enough for what they do. But who is to say what is enough? So, as I was thinking this, I looked in my back seat at my two children who I was driving to school. I started wondering about their teachers and how valuable they are to them, to me, and the thousands of other children across the state. My children spend a large portion of their time with their teachers so I would hope they are doing the best job of teaching my children skills, life lessons, morals, and of course, the basics. I realize my job, as a mother, is to do the same thing as well. However, they spend almost 7 hours a day with my children. Over the years, I have had my run-ins with some teachers that may not be suited to teach. I have also had the great pleasure of getting to know some of the best teachers. From my experience, their age, years worked, or even education were not hard and fast indications of who would be a great teacher. That is why I believe the great teachers should get paid for their excellence. Perhaps, it would even help the "others" politely remove themselves from the teaching field. Maybe, it would even attract others to come if they knew they could be paid for greatness. Everyone has to make money some how, so I can understand why some would chose other jobs that pay more even if their heart is with teaching. They way I see it, paying teachers based on merit is the right way to go about this.

Attracting and Retaining Great Teachers: What a Concept!

It would be wonderful if we knew more about teachers such as these and how to multiply their number. How do they come by their craft? What qualities and capacities do they possess? Can these abilities be measured? Can they be taught? Perhaps above all: How should excellent teaching be rewarded so that the best teachers—the most competent, caring and compelling—remain in a profession known for low pay, low status and soul-crushing bureaucracy?

All of these are questions I wish I had all the answers for. I am here to promote what this article is getting at. Teachers should be paid for how well they teach, end of story.

Such questions have become critical to the future of public education in the U.S. Even as politicians push to hold schools and their faculty members accountable as never before for student learning, the nation faces a shortage of teaching talent. About 3.2 million people teach in U.S. public schools, but, according to projections by economist William Hussar at the National Center for Education Statistics, the nation will need to recruit an additional 2.8 million over the next eight years owing to baby-boomer retirement, growing student enrollment and staff turnover—which is especially rapid among new teachers. Finding and keeping high-quality teachers are key to America's competitiveness as a nation. Recent test results show that U.S. 10th-graders ranked just 17th in science among peers from 30 nations, while in math they placed in the bottom five. Research suggests that a good teacher is the single most important factor in boosting achievement, more important than class size, the dollars spent per student or the quality of textbooks and materials.

The rest of this article in Time discusses in depth this idea of merit or performance pay. Let's face it, the schools are not that hot these days and we need to try some different things now. Let's urge support for this idea and see how great we can be.

What makes a great teacher?

From Time Magazine's cover feature: You can read the whole article here: How to Make Great Teachers

• How do [great teachers] come by their craft? What qualities and capacities do they possess? Can these abilities be measured? Can they be taught? Perhaps above all: How should excellent teaching be rewarded so that the best teachers—the most competent, caring and compelling—remain in a profession known for low pay, low status and soul-crushing bureaucracy?

• About 3.2 million people teach in U.S. public schools, but, according to projections by economist William Hussar at the National Center for Education Statistics, the nation will need to recruit an additional 2.8 million over the next eight years owing to baby-boomer retirement, growing student enrollment and staff turnover—which is especially rapid among new teachers.

• Finding and keeping high-quality teachers are key to America's competitiveness as a nation.

• Recent test results show that U.S. 10th-graders ranked just 17th in science among peers from 30 nations, while in math they placed in the bottom five. Research suggests that a good teacher is the single most important factor in boosting achievement, more important than class size, the dollars spent per student or the quality of textbooks and materials.

• What holds...promise is broader efforts to transform the profession by combining merit pay with more opportunities for professional training and support, thoughtful assessments of how teachers do their jobs and new career paths for top teachers.

• Other essential skills require on-the-job practice. It takes at least two years to master the basics of classroom management and six to seven years to become a fully proficient teacher. Unfortunately, a large percentage of public-school teachers give up before they get there. Between a quarter and a third of new teachers quit within their first three years on the job, and as many as 50% leave poor, urban schools within five years. Hiring new teachers is "like filling a bucket with a huge hole in the bottom," says Thomas Carroll, president of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, a Washington-based nonprofit.

• Why do teachers bail? One of the biggest reasons is pay. U.S. public-school teachers earn an average annual salary of less than $48,000, and they start off at an average of about $32,000. That's what Karie Gladis, 29, earned as a new teacher in Miami. She scrimped for 31⁄2 years and then left for a job in educational publishing. "It was stressful living from paycheck to paycheck," she says. "If my car broke down or if I needed dental work, there was just no wiggle room."

• And there's evidence that the best and brightest are the first to leave.

• In poor districts, attrition rates are so high, says Carroll, that "we wind up taking anybody just to have an adult in the classroom."

• There's little research on what makes for a successful merit-pay system, but several factors seem critical, says Matthew Springer, director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University. Denver's program includes many of them: a careful effort to earn teacher buy-in to the plan, clarity about how it works, multiple ways of measuring merit, rewards for teamwork and schoolwide success, and reliable financing. In fact, Denver's voters agreed to pay an extra $25 million a year in taxes for nine years to support the program.

• It's too soon to say if ProComp will raise achievement in Denver, but a pilot study found that students of teachers who enrolled on a trial basis performed better on standardized tests than other students. The program is already successful by another measure: raising the number of teachers applying to work in Denver's most troubled schools. Jake Firman, 22, who joined Teach for America right out of college in 2007, says he chose Denver from a list of 26 cities largely because of ProComp. "I thought it was a very cool idea," says Firman, who stands to earn extra pay for filling a hard-to-staff spot (middle-school math) at a high-needs school.

• It's a good goal for an entire nation in need of better-quality teaching. As U.S. school districts embark on hundreds of separate experiments involving merit pay, some lessons seem clear. If the country wants to pay teachers like professionals—according to their performance, rather than like factory workers logging time on the job—it has to provide them with other professional opportunities, like the chance to grow in the job, learn from the best of their peers, show leadership and have a voice in decision-making, including how their work is judged.