Are you failing your students?
Yes. No. Can I buy a vowel?
The no-longer taxpayer funded lawsuit filed by tax-collecting entities against another tax-collecting entity for more taxpayer money has reached a weird point in the testimony where 2 superintendents are falling over themselves to say that their schools don’t provide an adequate education. Or they do. Or they’re not sure.
Whatever the answer is, they agree on one thing - They need more money to do the job (or not do the job) of educating kids:
All schools in South Dakota need more money, a state Board of Education member testified Friday in a trial about the adequacy of state aid to education.
Donald Kirkegaard, who also is superintendent of the Britton-Hecla school, said that his own district hasn’t been forced to make cuts because of a lack of money and that he thinks students there are receiving a good education.
and..
Another school superintendent, Gary Leighton of Florence, said later Friday that he thinks his district is failing to give some students an adequate education. He was the final witness of the first week.
and…
The superintendent also said under questioning from Williams that Florence hasn’t had a graduate in the past five years who required remedial courses at one of the public universities.
and..
Leighton said, “We can only attract people right out of college because of our pay.”
Williams pointed out that the district’s profile, carried on the state Education Department Web site, shows the average teacher in Florence has 12 years of experience. Leighton said a couple of teachers with 30 years of experience skew the average.
Read the entire story story full of backtracking and doublespeak here.
Okay, one Superintendent says that under current conditions, his school provides a good education without cuts. And despite the other’s superintendent’s claims of failing the students of his community, his kids are apparently adequately prepared for college. And in one school, despite the claim of only being able to attract new teachers, the average term of service is 12 years?
The pro-”gimme tax money” forces seem to be taking a pounding, courtesy of themselves, in the opening days of the lawsuit against taxpayers.
Maybe next week they’ll try to convince us that the lawsuit was just a big misunderstanding. At the same time they tell us they want more money anyway.
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Comments
Yeah, that happens a lot.
You work really hard and do a good job for very little pay. But hey, don’t dare ask for a raise, because then you’ll have to prove you’ll do an even better job if you get one. You won’t be able to prove it of course, especially if you’ve already been giving it everything you’ve got. So then you get fired. Typical oldtime “bossman” mindset. THAT’S why there are unions.
Whatever happened to the idea of rewarding people for a job well done?
Unions suck. If you do a good job, you don’t need a union. good teachers should get more pay, but the union insists the bad ones get the same as the good ones. It’s socialism, Bill. Darn un-American if you ask me.
Anon #3, you are correct. Fleming is too. Pay the good ones more. Unfortunately the Teacher’s Union doesn’t agree with Mr. Fleming. But Mr. Fleming supports unions, so who’s right: the Union, or Mr. Fleming?
It is easy to say pay the good ones more. There are a lot of “mechanics” that could play against the idea. Are we gonna pay for high test scores, or, most improved test scores (even if they are still low). The mix of kids varies alot from room to room, even within the same grade. I like the idea of paying for quality, I just cant make it a tangable place. Do private schools pay the good ones more? I am curious, do the Catholic/private schools pay the good ones more ? my guess is they dont, anyone out there know ??
Ning-Wut, the system for pay in education is universal. Public, private, and parocial systems all pay teachers the way in our state. Other systems exist in a handful of states that pay teachers based on student’s academic growth, but the system requires use of a relatively expensive systems to analyze data, and of course requires buy-in by all the parties. To learn more, google “value-added assessment.”
It’s the typical Republican response. The schools are filled with bad teachers. There are a few good ones that we would like to reward with higher pay, but the union will not let us so we have to under pay all teachers.
My question for those that propose a merit pay system, what percent of current educators are good enough to deserve to be fairly paid?
it’s no more difficult to figure out how to pay performance bonuses for teachers than it is for any other profession. you can use objective measures such as test scores. you can use subjective measures such as evaluations by administrators. or you can use both.
if i might twist mr. deutsch’s use of the phrase “the system,” i believe that’s part of the problem. we care too much about “the system.”
i say if an individual school district decides it wants to evaluate its teachers to determine performance bonuses, then let them. forget about waiting to see if all the other parties want to buy in to it. let’s start simply, district by district.
Lex- it’s still the same question..
Where does the money come from?
Do we cut the salary of all of the bad teachers to give it to the few that you think deserve it?
Bottom line is that teachers (even the bad ones) are under paid).
chill out, john. nobody said the schools were “filled with bad teachers.”
you know, john, your question is typical of the system-think problem i’m talking about. you ask “what percent of current educators are good enough to deserve to be fairly paid?”
i say don’t worry about it. let the school districts figure that out on their own. in some, it might be 50%. in another it might be 5%. those are percentages that will change from year to year, from school to school.
we don’t need some pre-determined system-wide number of bonuses. it’s bureaucratic thinking like that that has us in this situation in the first place.
John-
Nobody said the schools are filled with bad teachers, you said that. Were saying is why are the Unions afraid to even put a piolot project out there to see if we can mix in some sort of merit based system. Where teachers that really go above and beyond and figure out what can and cant work in there classroom. I had really good teachers and really bad teachers in the SF system, but the Union pretects both. I remember a teacher who the admin, parents, students and other teachers wanted out but couldnt get rid of her because of the Union. There are alot of movies about teachers and principals who bucked the system and made real changes in a scool or district that wasn’t doing well, that punishes our children. I thought change was what the dems were all about this year?
Teacher pay is a local issue.
Not all teachers are quality or highly trained, in other words I really wondering how they were certified as teachers.
As for the pay scale. Let’s not forget about the benefits the teachers get…e.g.insurance.
Just one question I would like to throw out on education.
Have any of you looked over some of the text books the last few years??? The problems with spelling and wrong information. Give me a break. Text books cost a lot of money and then they send out books like that.
I don’t know the union position. But I know I wouldn’t consider merit based system until members were properly paid.
How can it be reasonable for an employer to say “yes you are under paid, but if you work really hard, are luck enough to have a boss who likes you, and students that are prepared to learn, we will toss you a merit raise?”
I’ll puke if one more person says teachers pay is low but look at the great benefits.
I don’t think that the Supers are being contradictory. They want the money but they’re not going to in any way say that they’re not doing their job. That’s how you get a pink slip…. How in the world can you say “we suck” and not get canned, regardless of the Super’s motives??
Until you get more money, a lot more money, the merit system won’t work. I can see it now: “Hey you’re doing a great job, here’s an extra hondo for you….” Need cash just sitting in the bank to make these merit pays worthwhile, and, frankly, not insulting. In this state, under these economic conditions, this won’t happen. No, I’m not in favor of an income tax.
Then start puking-
If you dont factor in benefits, there 9 month calender, paid holidays and education differences with say an accounting degree, medical or law ect its purely supply and demand economics. If the system wants to be compared with the market conditions for pay you have to take the good with the bad. Just like the shortages for math and science teachers. They are payin signing bonuses and additional pay to encourage teachers to go into those fields. But the Union fights this because they want all to be treated the same, They push for averages not for teachers to excellerate. I think teachers have merit on this but they cant have it both ways. I think some teachers are the hardest working, focused admired people in our community. So take the leash off and let the market decide what there worth. I think alot, I just dont think alot of the Union.
I don’t really think that the teacher union represents all the members or should I say represents all the members equal on belief. I do think that teachers are basicly forced to join. I have heard that the teachers union sometimes gets involved when the contracts are in dispute, thus if you are not a member they will not help with the dispute and sometimes as we have seen in SD the dispute can go on for a long time.
according to the american federation of teachers, south dakota teachers rank 20th in the nation when their salary is compared to that of private sector workers in the state. not so bad.
john, you ask “How can it be reasonable for an employer to say ‘yes you are under paid, but if you work really hard, are luck enough to have a boss who likes you, and students that are prepared to learn, we will toss you a merit raise?’”
my answer is “welcome to world the rest of us live in.” it’s not perfect, but that’s how everybody else does it. and it seems to work out for the better.
the bottom line is that there are many teachers out there who go above and beyond the call of duty. they ought to be rewarded for it.
Currently there are some 300 school districts in the US that utilize some form of merit or contribution pay. Several states have also adopted new systems. In Florida, former Gov. Bush oversaw enactment of a teacher reform pay under which all teachers have some of their salary based on improved student achievement and other approved performance appraisal indicators. In Minnesota, Gov. Pawlenty proposed legislation passed by the legislature in 2005 to provide budgeted funds to districts that reform teacher pay. Texas and TN have also implemented their own programs. Other states have pilot programs, including Iowa, Oklahoma and North Carolina. It sees there is a growing recognition that the current mechanisms of determining teacher pay – academic degrees and years of teaching experience – are lackluster predictor of student success. It will be interesting to see what unfolds here in SD.
Annon 9:46 here again. Another issue that I find to believe has not came up is that of “job security”. I would say that might have a high price tag. You can be a low level teacher ( not a real good one), and do just enough to get that job security. If that isn’t a big bonus, I bet I can come up with thousands of employees who would like that kind of job security. Get this I know teachers who are opposed to tenure. WOW… Good for them! PS: They were and are good teachers, who students were high achievers.
Hey ymous….this is sure to make John sick in the belly. You might want to get some anti-acid ready to pass through cycber space….
Should we all discuss the “every kid deserves to go to college” Or how about student loans of those who DON”T FINISH. Should they have to pay back the funds given to them??? HUMMMMMMMM Should every kid go to college, in other words do they really have the ability? Have colleges lowered their standards to allow such students to enter?
i don’t believe we have tenure in so dak, do we mr. deutsch? yet, anonymous makes a good point about job security. it is very difficult to fire a bad teacher.
Lex, You might want to talk to someone you trust about tenure within the school systems. They might not call it that anymore, but……..
LexRex, the school distrcits have three years to evaluate a teacher to determine if he or she has the “right stuff.” They gain tenure with the fourth year of employment.
PS Anon 9:46 is right — never trust anything you read on a blog unless you know the person posting the comment.
Fred Deutsch
Watertown School Board Pres.
Ooo, man Fred, I’m just not used to seeing lexrex’s name quite so typographically tousled. He’s an e.e. cummings, all-lower-case kind of guy, you know? I’d say (rule of thumb) one cap is too much, but two, I fear, may be perhaps ummm… blasphemy (sort of)?
But beyond that (and much more seriously) I’m really enjoying your posts on this topic.
Thanks for them.
You know, IMHO, I think this post should be placed towards the top. I think this is a god conversation piece. TEACHER PAY.
What do u think PP???
fyi fred, my name is rob regier. i’m just a lowly political consultant. happen to be working with the great plains public policy institute (i.e., former state rep. ron williamson).
as for tenure, why are there so many educrats and legislators who think we do NOT have tenure? ask one legislator one day and another the next, and you’ll get 3 different answers.
bf, methinks probably i am the one committing blasphemy. if anything “lexrex” ought to be all caps. but that’s just too much work. gotta save my energy for punctuation
lexrex:
People, or I should say some people do not want to admit that there is a profession out there that has job safety/security, in the context of being fired.
Then we hear the excuse that the teachers would be left to the hands of “just the super” at their desire to hrie and hire for no reason. If that is the case fix the broken wheel.
Speaking of broken wheels should we discuss the Head Start program and the pre-school issue!
All the school districts involved in this are greedy gimme liberals. The neo-intellectuals here like your pets Todd and Bill are just knee jerk gimme-gimme tax and spend liberals. I hope they all get their budgets cut 50% and have to figure out how to pay for what they think they want instead of making people like me foot the bill for all these rich administrators.