By DB

March 10, 2009 12:47 PM | Link to this

Oh, hell — every single President has wanted to “overhaul education”. Why is this news? Somehow, a substandard education is always the fault of the previous administration. But more and more federal intervention in education has not seen an appreciable rise in the quality of education.

By jim d

March 10, 2009 1:29 PM | Link to this

Change?

Mr. Obama has already proven we should be careful what you wish for! Problem is people still haven’t gotten it.

By jim d

March 10, 2009 1:35 PM | Link to this

DB,

STOP THE WORLD and let me off!!!

That’s twice we’ve agreed in the past week.

How wierd is that? :)

By Laura

March 10, 2009 2:20 PM | Link to this

Well, considering he appointed the former head of Chicago City Schools to be his sec. of ed, this should turn out famously.

I wonder if the teachers’ unions are irritated that they backed him yet. Their overwhelming support of Democrat candidates is exactly why I’ve never signed up. I don’t support either party, so why do I want to be a member of an organization who does, and who only represents THEIR best interests, and not the kids’?

I’ve seen the NEA and GAE in action “protecting” teachers - they refused to make it easy for my old principal to can someone who was verbally and physically abusive to students. It’s amazing what a lawsuit can do to keep the right thing from being done.

By Reality

March 10, 2009 3:58 PM | Link to this

The only change that the federal government needs to make regarding education is to repeal the NCLB act! That has messed us up more than anything in recent history.

By Reality 2

March 10, 2009 5:06 PM | Link to this

I thought I heard/read somewhere that Duncan was able to institute a merit pay system in Chicago, with the blessing from the AFT. Was I completely misinformed?

I really don’t have any problem with a merit pay system, but is there any research evidence that shows that such a system will improve education outcomes?

Speaking of research evidence, why do we want to continue spending more money on charter schools when they have not produced the kinds of results that their supporters promised? I think we should scrap that idea.

By ScienceTeacher671

March 10, 2009 6:43 PM | Link to this

I want to hear more about this idea of “expecting more from our students”….what exactly does THAT mean? Surely he’s not suggesting that students come to school ready to learn, sit down, pay attention, do their work, do their homework, and study?

By Teacher1976

March 10, 2009 8:20 PM | Link to this

I love it. Finally we may get merit pay. Teachers’ unions are idiots and addicted to low expectations and failure from students and teachers. I will enjoy my merit pay. It happens in private sector: paying people for their achievements. So why shouldn’t we get bonuses when we achieve? I think any teacher against merit pay is a low performing teacher who makes few strides with his or her students.

By viewfromsputnik

March 11, 2009 1:28 AM | Link to this

Did you not hear/read that he said CRADLE to (grave) career?????? The compulsory school age is currently 6 - it was 7 just a few years ago. HE WANTS TO LOWER THE COMPULSORY AGE TO BIRTH! Any student of COMMUNIST history would recognize this tactic immediately! I’ve already posted about the “Promise Neighborhoods” he put in his budget. These are based on a “Harlem Kid Zone” model school. It controls 92 blocks of Harlem neighborhoods. Social workers are sent in to “educate” parents BEFORE the kid is born. I believe these ” NANNY STATE ZONES” will be duplicated all over the country, and they will eventually be for ALL children, not just poor minorities in Harlem. It is interesting to note that many Wall Street luminaries were shelling out millions to get the model school up and running. Hmmmmm. Here’s a Wall Street Tip: SOCIAL WORKER - The up and coming career!

By VOICE

March 11, 2009 12:16 PM | Link to this

4 DAY SCHOOL WEEK, YEAR ROUND CALENDAR (9 weeks in, 2 weeks off)

By Old School

March 11, 2009 12:49 PM | Link to this

Does any merit pay plan include non-academic instructors (CTAE, Phys Ed, Ag for instance)? How will their students’ achievement be evaluated? Are only academic (math, science, language arts, and social studies) teachers eligible?

Will there be an easy-peasy checklist used for evaluating teachers like the Max Thompson artifacts-on-the-wall one? Whoop-de-do.

By skeptical teacher

March 11, 2009 2:10 PM | Link to this

Dear Teacher1976, How exactly would you make pay for performance fair? How do you compare the test results of a teacher who has all gifted-level students to a teacher who has all basic-level students? How do you compare the test results of teachers at a school with very involved parents and one where you can’t drag parents to an essential meeting? I’m sure I would be fine under the merit-pay system because I teach upper-level students in a very good school, but I have also worked in the inner city, so I know the obstacles those teachers are up against. I also understand that education is not at all like business—a school is not an assembly line. There are too many factors involved and too many outside influences on student motivation and achievement to hold a teacher ultimately accountable for the test results of the students.

By NGaTeacher

March 12, 2009 3:46 PM | Link to this

I have been a teacher on the middle school through college level over a 25 year career. For basic evaluations, merit pay is unworkable because it is full of validity and political holes. Also, professionals are assumed to operate at their best. Typically, merit pay works in cases of improving productivity when the typical worker “gets by” with minimal effort. Sales is a great place for merit pay, because there are no politics involved in evaluations; if the sales go up, commissions go up. Factory work is another great place: if the number of mistakes is less, or a person makes more widgets, pay goes up. I would not work any harder or do anything different if “merit pay” was around, because results are largely determined not by my efforts but by the nuances of student socioeconomic background and cognition, which account for 99% of results. There ARE situations we (teachers) all agree “merit pay” would be “merited”! These include “Teacher of the Month” type awards and for situations like teaching the roughest kids in the school, or teaching at poverty schools. God bless the inner-city or poverty rural area teachers who get no parental support and unsocialized children. Yes, some of these are deadwood who “hide out” because principals are happy just to have warm bodies, but many are loving, unselfish community members who give more of themselves than do most of us.

By catlady

March 14, 2009 1:21 PM | Link to this

FIRST, you have to get valid ways of measuring student achievement. Until that is solved, you go nowhere.

As it is now we have no valid ways. Kids (having free will) will blow off the test (finished in 5 minutes, a world record even for Reading First!) or try hard or something in between; we have no control over that. Parents (having no incentives) will continue to send kids to school who have not been fed, not been bathed, not been encouraged, not been paid attention to, not been put to bed, not been disciplined; we have no control over that.

Can’t go by student grades, either. If so, all of us teachers could be superstars.

Then there is the question of validity of the instrument. Too subject to variation (the second grade test is 2 years easier than the third grade one). The questions are invalid, poorly written, or have multiple correct answers (CRCT). You could give the same test the next day and get widely differing scores. Etc. You could even do like my system does: give the same form of the test (ITBS) in October as in April. The kids say, “Hey, we’ve had this before!”

Until you solve the problem of accurately measuring the value added, this is a moot question unless you are a simpleminded bureaucrat or legislator.

By beth

March 15, 2009 4:54 PM | Link to this

I am not a fan of Merit Pay for teachers. I work in one of those “troubled inner-city schools” that everyone feels sorry for because we’re so shafted. Bull!! That isn’t the reason I’m not a fan of Merit Pay. I work at a school that encourages teachers to find the avenues within the school to boost their professional growth. This past year I’ve led a parent committee and held monthly parent meetings. I’ve also been named a winner of a grant this year to reinvent our parent resource room to increase and sustain parental involvement. I work with another teacher who applied for grants and is creating math backpacks that will be rotated through 120 students. The teachers of the inner city are talented and possess a lot of determination to prove a lot of people wrong. I’m against the Merit Pay because regardless of where a teacher teaches there will be a mix of high and low quality teachers. Those of us who seek opportunities to continuously make education better globally and within our schools will be the teachers who receive the class that isn’t balanced with high and low performing students. Our administrators are being asked to play yet another game within the world of education created by someone not in the field. Our administrators will place the more academically and behavior challenged students in the classrooms of those teachers who are highly qualified because we refuse defeat and actually believe ALL children can learn. This means we will be the ones working late, looking for grants, etc. while the teachers who aren’t highly qualified will have the higher performing students because they’ll continue to teach with a worksheet, find something to complain about (usually time and money), and will not have to work late but will receive the same Merit Pay that we, the highly qualified teachers had to actually do our jobs to earn. I’m irritated with the games government makes our administrators play so that AYP and various other goals can be met. Why not take it back to the college level and make the teaching programs just as prestigious as a lawyer, doctor, etc. Let’s make it easier for administrators to weed out these below par teachers who are the root cause of all these regulated changes. Merit Pay isn’t needed for a highly qualified teacher to continue doing their job with high quality, it is for the low quality teacher to find purpose within a field that is a calling…dare I say these are the same individuals who expect handouts to be given? Isn’t that the purpose of the Merit Pay? It isn’t really for you and me the highly qualified educator to be awarded it is for the individual to have a momentary purpose within the field of education. Why should they be rewarded for our determination, love, respect and admiration for the field?