And the haters said it would never happen... Obama bucks the teachers unions and their pals and endorses merit pay for teachers and the removal of state limits on the number of charter schools :
"Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom."
Union leaders tried to fudge Obama's language, arguing that what he really meant is that teachers with extra certifications or that work in low-income areas are going to get the bonuses, not teachers with higher performing kids. Hopefully Obama remains firm, at least on the first point. There's very little causation between certification and high-quality teaching. Some number of high-quality teachers get the certification, but that's not what makes them better. Certification is all about teachers making portfolios of lesson plans and a lot of other nonsense, very little of which actually makes them better. I agree that it's worthwhile to pay teachers in challenging areas a "combat pay" differential in order to lure better teachers to those schools and keep them there (because, take it from me, teaching in a low-income area is hard, hard work), but this is a different issue from rewarding excellence.
In the speech, Obama also touched on a corollary issue that's probably even more important- removing poor teachers. This is not just about test scores- in every school, everybody, from students to administrators to other teachers knows who the bad teachers are. Obama's stated bluntly that, if these teachers have had a chance to improve, and don't, there's no excuse for keeping them around. Good stuff, now let's turn it into policy.
No comments:
Post a Comment