And then, strangely, later in the article you read this:
Boston teachers make an average of $71,830, higher than the pay in eight surrounding cities and towns, according to the report.
Now waiiiiit just a dad-burned second. Didn't they say that a “representative” teacher would go from $50k to $72k over the four years of the last contract? But the average is $71K. One might think the average was “representative”. Or maybe we should know the mode, or median. I don't know much — and I think I know less now.
And so what if Boston teachers make more than the surrounding communities? Don't they do tougher work in an urban system? Don't we want teachers to take on those challenges? etc.
Now, get into the report, and TBF chief Paul Grogan says nicey-nice things like this:
At the core of any lasting school reform are teachers. They are the ones who are doing the work, and they need a greater role in decision making at the school level. Incentives must be available to encourage high-performing teachers who have shown demonstrable results assume the most challenging posts and take additional responsibility. Their compensation reflect the professional nature of teachers, yet and the current contract only
rewards time in the system and the number of graduate credits accumulated.
Isn't this the most wonderful case of begging the question ever? Like, what exactly are “demonstrable results?” And does paying for [allegedly] “demonstrable results” actually work?
One has to wonder about the journalistic savvy of Globe reporter Beth Daley, who pretty much works as stenographer for TBF's findings, then getting the necessary he-said-she-said pushback from Boston Teachers Union's Richard Stutman.
This is not critical thinking. And it's not good journalism — the kind that genuinely helps one understand an issue better. To wit:
The report highlights the 5 to 6 percent raises new teachers receive each year for the first nine years they teach — in addition to negotiated annual wage increases. After nine years, teachers stop receiving annual increases, but receive “career award’’ raises from $1,250 to $5,050 every five years. Teachers also received a 14 percent wage increase over the life of the last four-year contract.
To any journalist who may be reading this, I beg you: Please, please, please, annualize the percentage increase of statistics like this. Because you read “OMG 14% increase over four years — that's a lot!!” until you do a little math on your cell phone calculator and realize that comes out to an annual increase of ~3.4%. Not exactly skyrocketing — particularly when you think that the old contract was signed in the “old normal” year of 2005 — you know, when we had a nice real estate bubble going on around here.
And furthermore, is that 3.4% annual raise in addition to the 5-6% that new teachers get? Or is it just what all the other teachers get? Eh?
So here's the problem: this morning on WBUR, Stutman pointed to a Vanderbilt study that there's no proof that incentivizing teachers with merit pay leads to better student outcomes. Oops.
You know what else I don't believe?
- That years-of-experience and educational attainment are a good way to determine pay. They're not — TBF is right enough to point that out.
- That we should pay for success by “teams”, “groups”, “posses”, or “gaggles” of teachers; nor by school. Or perhaps, at least it shouldn't be limited to that.
- That test scores are an adequate way to quantify teacher quality.
- That 90% of school administrators are actually qualified to sit in a class and tell whether a teacher is doing a good job or not, especially given such an utterly contrived situation. In my school experience, it was often the best teachers who got along worst with the administration.
- That we have any decent, well-researched, replicable idea of how to actually structure merit pay.
- That TBF's report will do anything to further that debate, since it scarcely addresses that issue.
In conclusion, here's a bit of wisdom from one of the authors of the Vanderbilt study:
“We believe there is an important lesson here: teachers are more likely to cooperate with a performance pay plan if its purpose is to determine whether the policy is a sound idea, than if plans being forced on them in the absence of such evidence and in the face of their skepticism and misgivings,” Springer said.
Absence of evidence, hmmm.
PS: I would draw your attention to the extra pay that teachers can get for coaching and advising, last page of the TBF report.
- $10,834 for football head coach;
- $5,415 for intramural assistant softball coach;
- comparable amounts for other sports coaches;
- $1,390 for Drama Club advisor (who presumably directs the plays?? Am I wrong?)
- $1,390 for academic debate coach.
You have got to be kidding me. Now that's a story. Hello misplaced priorities.
It’s pretty rare that kids suffer from concussions, heat stroke, or other injuries whilst performing Shakespeare. Of course, I do mind when our football coaches are more focused on winning than in safety, good values and sportsmanship, or in making sure that their kids are performing sufficiently well academically.
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p>Know what I think helps kids learn more, both in urban and suburban schools? more time in the schools. Personally, I’d like to see this done in two ways:
1. More school days per year. Add some days. This can be tough because of the lack of AC in lots of schools, but I’m sure something could be done. Lengthening the year is particularly important if we are to close the achievement gap because really good data shows that poorer kids lose far more ground over the summer than wealthy kids — that’s what happens when you hang out all summer instead of going to camps, etc.
2. More hours per day. I’d like to see school open from 7-7. I’m not arguing for 11 hours of classes (1 hour for lunch and recess). I’m also not arguing that any single teacher would be responsible for being there all those hours. I’d like to see teachers in two shifts, from 7-3 and from 11-7. You have your most intensive work 11-3: team teaching, focused tutoring groups, etc. You have classes outside of that, but you also make sure that 3-7 is available for sports, arts, STEM or language exploration, etc.
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p>We know that there are plenty of kids whose education suffers every minute that they’re home. Maybe their parents are sucky, or maybe they’re in an unsafe environment and their parents are (or parent is) working 60, 80, 100 hours a week. Allow kids to stay in school more hours. They’ll be safer, more engaged, more valued, more well educated, and more well rounded.
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p>It’s really expensive, but I think it’s the best way.
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p>P.S. More public magnet schools, please!
Good points all.
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p>And isn’t it time, in addition to reforming the way we pay teachers (hopefully in ways that incite and reward excellence) we started to face up to the fact that we need a balanced approach that targets NEW revenues to rebuilding and repairing our school systems, not just in Boston, but in the suburbs and rural areas.
teachers need to have excellence “incited.” There is absolutely no need to reform the pay structure until teachers WANT it changed. Teachers do not want it changed. I don’t mean the unions don’t want it changed, teachers don’t want it. Of course, teachers ARE the union.
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p>The real attack on teachers is just gaining strength. The attackers want teachers’ health insurance. Will teachers get “better” health insurance in the exchange? Attackers want teachers’ pensions. Will they get “better” pensions in the exchange? Now the privateers want teachers’ pay structure changed. Will teachers get “better” pay in the exchange?
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p>No, no, and no. The move is clearly to worsen the lives of teachers. And the hideously phony excuse is that by worsening the lives of teachers, that will benefit students.
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p>Seriously, does ANYbody wonder why unions SHOULD be entrenching?
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p>Resistance to change: the heart of the conservative.
Convince us that it will be better for us with a worse pension, worse insurance, worse pay, less security, no protection, subjection to subjectivity and loss of control of what little we DO control. Please, feel free to convince us that we should be like private sector workers and the daily stories of being screwed over. It’ll be fun to consider such an argument.
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p>Employees want to be equal partners in the labor-management equation. If that makes me a conservative, so be it. Once progress is achieved, maintenance of progress is a conservative process.
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p>Radical regressiveness SHOULD be resisted.
Especially you last line — more public magnet schools. Everything from art to voke to humanities to math and science. We desperately need to prepare students for future courses beyond a liberal arts degree. We’re running an 18th century system scaled up to 21st century proportions.
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p>The longer day idea is interesting, but is being abandoned by the Mass. DoE as not supported by research; they are exploring longer school years, though. Questions about its efficacy are currently at study.
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p>The Boston Foundation/Bill Gates/Boston Globe has been clear in their campaign to attack public schools. It is red meat for people opposed to unions, or to any benefit accruing to a public sector worker who’s too stupid to take the higher paycheck they’d receive in the private sector.
This is how the school budget gets decided-it’s a fixed pie:
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p>Multiply the whole city budget (which relies almost exclusively on property tax increases for growth) by 34%.
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p>Take out overhead
Pay the teachers what’s in the contract
Pay the staff what’s left
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p>Only one problem – this means the school budget will only be about $25 million larger next year – after paying for overhead increases (health care, fuel etc.), there’s almost nothing left for teacher and staff raises. At the same time the teachers will need to work longer hours to keep up with the charters.
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p>The only hope they have is that a lot of kids actually go to charters, and they can use teacher attrition to reduce the headcount for fewer students and the state interim charter payments to fund any increases for 2 years or so. Only problem is that only works if the state can start ramping up local aid again in 2-3 years – a fairly unlikely scenario.
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p>Somehow our city’s administration doesn’t understand that if you increase taxes at 5-6% and pay and bennies at 4-5% when the economy is growing at 3% or less you hit a wall. If the teachers think this wall is hard when they run into it – just wait 2-3 years – the wall won’t be standing still. It will be moving in their direction magnifying the impact.
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p>It has nothing to do with over/underpaid. It’s what we can afford.
At some point it is a moral imperative to pay teachers (or anyone for that matter) what they are worth based on expected skill sets, level of education, and value of their work to society. To say we can’t afford it is a lame excuse, especially in communities still shackling themselves by Prop 2 1/2.
that this isn ‘t about “ability to pay.” It’s about how to pay. The Boston Foundation, as usual wants to force its solutions on unwilling groups. They certainly aren’t asking educators what they think of their idea. Nor have they asked any if they want their idea. Their only “sales pitch” is the “good for the children” canard. And they neither give any evidence fror such an assertion, nor could they find any if they looked.
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p>If you can’t afford the teachers in your community, lay them off; but do so according to the method you negotiated with the employees. Management has the exclusive right to do something like that, even if we think it’s a dumb idea.
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p>What this really is (the BF proposal) is part of yet another attack on unions and employee empowerment.