As I stated earlier, this class made me really think about the things that affect our schools and students. During the school year, we are often so caught up in our day-to-day lives and our busy school day, we do not take the time to think about all of the factors that affect our students and our teachers. I hope I will always be able to remember these discussions from this class and stay current with these events. I think it will make me a better teacher and that is always best for our students.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Final blog
As I thought back on all the discussions we have had in this class, I tried to come up with a word or phrase that could summarize how I felt about it. The one word that keeps coming back to me is that it made me think. Although this word may seem simplistic, I think it fits the nature of a philosophy class. Even though I was aware of most of the out of school factors since I have been teaching for many years and have experienced first hand some of the baggage that my students come to school carrying, it was interesting and informative to discuss them in depth. I teach eighth graders and do not often think about the circumstances of the child's birth or environmental factors that still influence that child's education. Family and neighborhood factors are obvious but are things we should still always remember when teaching our students. I also enjoyed the debate that I took part in on extending the school day or year. Researching that topic helped me realize how many factors must be analyzed before just concluding that the school day or year needs to be lengthened. It is easy to say students will perform better academically and learn more if the day or year is extended, but there are so many other things that need to be examined before actually implementing such a plan. School funding is certainly one of those factors that need to be closely looked at before a school or district can extend the day or year. As we hear about more and more budget cuts, teacher layoffs, and school closings in the past few weeks, I have to wonder: where would this money come from to increase the length of the day or year? Teachers and staff would have to be compensated and the costs of more materials for the students for the year would have to be taken into consideration. It is a great idea to keep our most at-risk students in school longer, but it always comes down to funding before a final decision can be made.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Merit pay for teachers
Merit pay for teachers is a controversial subject that can lead to heated arguments. Unions think the idea of merit pay is unfair to teachers and too difficult to implement equitably. But is there a way to implement merit pay fairly for teachers? According to Bobby Anne Starnes, out of all of the talk about education reform, teacher merit pay should not be the highest on the list. She relates education reform through teacher merit pay to blaming tellers for the banking industries failures. (http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.nl.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=3&hid=105&sid=f6bcbf43-bf62-4fa3-a69e-6eb5972e24ca%40sessionmgr102) "Of all the actors in schools and schooling, of all the people in the hierarchy, are teachers the ones who should be singled out? They, who are never included in making decisions about how schools operate?" I find this quote to be quite true. The people in charge of administrative decisions have rarely ever been in the classroom or have been so far removed from the classroom, they have no clue what it is like to be in the front lines of teaching.
So will implementing merit based pay increase student performance? Because that is really what merit pay is all about. It is not about teacher performance but it is all about increasing students' test scores. Teachers do not enter the profession thinking they will become wealthy. I have never heard a teacher say they would work harder or teach better if they were payed more. If pay for teachers is tied to performance on standardized testing, how are teachers evaluated that teach subjects that do not get tested such as physical education, music, art, and sometimes even social studies? In an article in The Washington Post, Jay Matthews worries that with an individual pay-for-performance, it becomes every teacher for herself or himself. Teachers lose the sense of team work if they think every little thing they do is going to affect their salary.
Most teachers I know work hard to give their students a great education. They are not in it for the money. They come to work early and they leave well after they are off the clock. Would merit pay really change them into even better teachers? I do not think it would have any affect on their teaching performance.
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