New BTU Contract - enough details?

A new contract. An extremely progressive contract. As you probably heard, the BTU released an updated version of this new contract late last night with key adjustments and substantial details added in the section regarding how teachers would actually move up this new four – tiered pay scale. However, the contract is still said to be a bit murky regarding teacher evaluations as the state’s Department of Education has not yet released specific information – just the phrase, “tied to student performance” – a phrase teachers often shy away from due to its ambiguity. The Baltimore Sun highlights the new contracts release, its additions and explanations, but says nothing related to the “AUs” – who will be keeping track of these?

As a young professional, I think the idea of a modern contract where teachers are forced to pursue additional professional development or go back to school once in a while to receive an increase in pay is a great idea. I also think it is awesome that our veteran teachers who have educated our children for more than 20 years are given the opportunity to increase their pay each year as well. But I think that the BTU needs to realize that until they specifically outline all of the “murky” details, a progressive contract like this will not realistically pass. Furthermore, when the BTU presents the tentative agreement to its members, they should be more prepared to explain and explain more. During the last vote, a young teacher paraded up and down the long lines holding a sign that said simply, “Please do not vote if you do not know the specifics.” As Baltimore City Teachers, it is our job to get the specifics.

The Importance of School Mission and Vision

The panelists from our class last Thursday (October 21) on Charter Schools in
Baltimore left me thinking about the impact of student investment in the school
mission on student achievement. In the final question, panelists were asked, “How
do you message your school vision to your students, or is it just implicit in
everything that your students do?”

The answers varied between charter schools. Green Street Academy prides itself
on its five core values, which every student knows and recites in the form of a daily
pledge. Every discipline issue is framed as a breach of one of these core values. The
same teacher, who had worked at The Crossroads School the year before, mentioned
that sixth graders entering the middle school picked up on the “Crossroads Way”
and knew how to conduct themselves appropriately. And there are, obviously,
plenty of other Charter Schools around the country that adopt and communicate
similar concrete visions for their students, with successful student achievement
outcomes, including KIPP schools.

Other panelists, including the representatives from City Neighbors Charter School,
responded that having nonnegotiable pledges did not fit succinctly into their vision
for their school. President of City Neighbors, Bobbi MacDonald, commented that
several years ago, when founders first sat down to write the mission statement,
there was disagreement about using the word “enlivened” within it because it
wasn’t something that could be measured. Despite the debate, they included it, and
were rewarded last year by feeling as if their graduating middle school students
were truly enlivened upon exiting the school. City Neighbors’ success was perhaps
the result of their mission and vision, yet theirs is messaged more implicitly than
that of the previously mentioned charter schools.

Personally, I appreciate the more implicit messaging of a school vision, which is
embodied by all members of the school community; however, I think that it is more
difficult to pull off successfully. In order for a mission and vision to be successful,
students should be able to describe their school by citing their mission statement,
not necessarily repeat it in a pledge or do something because the school values
say so. But at the same time, how can we teach our students this without telling
them the values outright, bringing them up in conversation, or having them repeat
them on a daily basis? It is a difficult task, but as City Neighbors has proven, not an
impossible one.

Whether implicit or explicit, a school mission and vision that is understood and
embodied by all members of a school seems to have some effect on the success of a
charter school. The questions remain: How strong does the school identity need to
be? And how should we message it to students?

Performance Pay: Coming to a City Near You!

A piece in the Baltimore Sun about a week ago stated that a state legislative committee had put a hold on "a regulation that would require student achievement be at least 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation in Maryland." This is because the committee feels the State Board of Education has started to place more specifics into the proposal than were initially proposed. According to Paul Pinsky, the law states that student achievement should be a "significant" portion of a teacher's evaluation but does not specify a percent. There is some concern that if this new teacher evaluation is not enacted, than Maryland may lose some of our Race to the Top money.

My point is not to discuss whether the legislature was justified in being surprised that the board of education had to put a numerical value to "significant." My point is to discuss performance pay. I have an aunt who is, as of last June, a retired veteran teacher. She once told my dad, regarding tenure, "I'm not sure I could go to work each day and know that I could be fired if I didn't do a good job." Obviously, that line is a little unpolished and probably doesn't completely reflect what my aunt actually thinks. However, I think there is a sentiment there that is shared by a lot of teachers.

Everyone agrees that we want good teachers teaching. However, we don't seem to want to fire bad teachers. At the same time we don't want to reward good teachers with more money. How is it fair for a teacher who consistently moves her students two years in reading gets the same pay as a teacher who pops in a video everyday and doesn't move their children much at all? I think we are sending the wrong message to teachers, you can work very hard or work very little and you'll make the same money.

Performance pay has many problems to work out to ensure that it is a fair and valid form of measurement. We need to make sure that regardless of how performance pay is awarded, it is sensitive to all the other factors that can influence students performance. However, teachers need to know that performance pay is going to happen. As a political issue its a no brainer. It is very hard for the public to accept that teachers should not be held accountable for their performance on the job, when nearly every other employed person in the world is accountable for their performance on the job. It is just a difficult argument to make and the public wants accountability from schools and that means teachers.

As I was typing this I just received an email saying another tentative contract has been reached. This brings us right back to where I began. Performance pay is going to happen, today, tomorrow, a year from now. The public supports the idea and teachers should too. Good teachers stand to make the kind of money that make teaching comparable with other bachelor level careers. Furthermore, it just makes sense, teachers should be held accountable for the job they do in the classroom. It is time for teachers to decide whether they want to be part of the process of shaping performance pay or have it forced upon them by a law. Either way, performance pay is coming to a city near you.

Charter School Proposal on Tuesday

The Baltimore Sun reported that Dr. Alonso will be a part of a meeting on Tuesday to hear the plans for new charter schools in the city. Amongst the 7 charter schools and 4 transformation schools, I am watching two of the schools most closely. There will be a proposal for an all boys high school and an all girls high school. We talked in class about the advantages and disadvantages of each, and I have been watching the way the two genders interact in my class. I have noticed that if I work with a group of girls or with a group boys separate from the opposite, they are different. The boys, especially, tend to calm down a lot when there are no girls looking.

Boys and girls learn in different ways. Girls mature more quickly, and boys need to be more hands on. Here in Baltimore, I have noticed too that students get sexual at an earlier age, sometimes unaware of the risks and repercussions of sex at a young age. The drawbacks, of course, include a lack of social interaction with the opposite sex, but it is important to consider that academically students may thrive in this situation.

As a product of single sex education, I believe that single sex education made a difference for me. I have not been able to find any examples of a public school with single gender, or to find their level of success. The research that I have found though states that if teachers are properly trained in how to teach a single sex classroom, they can capitalize on the situation and make the most out of it to raise student achievement. The research states that children will not become more gender restricted, but instead will be given more opportunities to explore and express their actual interests.

It will be interesting to see how the board votes on these two high schools, since there are so few charter high schools. If they are approved and can prove to be successful, they could change the way education is done on a much larger scale.