My Thoughts on the State Budget

Yes, this is going to be a *gasp* political opinion post.  This is a big deal for me because I am not a big political person.  I don't take one side and blame the opposing political party for all the world's problems.  I do not post on Facebook my political opinions or try to persuade people to vote for a certain candidate.  What could possibly persuade me to write a political post then?  Oh, nothing much, just the NC General Assembly trying to destroy my profession.  Honestly, I doubt any of you will make it through the whole post.  If you're not a teacher or you do not have children in school, much of this doesn't directly affect you.  However, I have a lot on my mind and this is a way for me to air some of those opinions.

If you haven't heard the news:
Watch here
Teachers' responses
NCAE's (NC Association of Educators) Response
Comments from the Public

The newly proposed NC budget wants to change several things about education.
1. Cut teaching assistant positions
2. Remove teacher tenure and give merit-based raises
3. Create "opportunity scholarships"
4. Provides 5 bonus days for employees

1. Cut teaching assistant positions
I don't have much to say about this one since teaching assistants are primarily found in elementary schools.  I know that class sizes are steadily increasing and that TAs can help a teacher give individualized education to each student and quickly identify holes in a student's comprehension.  I know that losing TAs in the lower grades is going to worsen the reading and math deficiencies I already see in my own students.

2. Remove teacher tenure and give merit-based raises
First, a few facts.

I am about to start my third year of teaching.  The first three years of the teaching profession are called probationary.  This means that each year, I am on a one-year contract and that my school (based on my performance or job availability) has to ask me back each year.  Each of these years, I am evaluated by a team of people (the assistant principal in charge of the science department, peers (usually my department chair or a senior member of the sci dept), and my mentor teacher).  Last year, I'd estimate that I was formally observed about ten times.  During these observations, they evaluate my performance based on five standards of teaching.  This year, they added a sixth standard which is based on my students' performance on a state exam called the Measures of Student Learning (MSLs).  During my fourth year of teaching, I will go through the same evaluation process, but with the principal of the school.  If I reach a certain level on the evaluation tool, I will receive tenure.

The term "tenure" gets thrown around a lot, so I looked up exactly what it means.  According to the Professional Educators of NC, a tenured teacher (or a "career teacher" as it actually shows up in our paperwork) can only be discharged under certain conditions.  Many people outside of education consider tenured teachers the ones that prop their feet up on their desks and let students goof off or sleep all day.  Why do they care?  They've got job security for life.  This isn't a true picture though, because tenured teachers can still be fired for inadequate performance, immorality, insubordination, neglect of duty, or a decrease in the number of teaching positions available in a school district.

I made the mistake of reading the public comments on wral.com (the last link I provided above).  Many people talk about how they support getting rid of tenure because teachers receive this raise (tenure) simply for being present for four years.  They say that in the "real world," people have to earn their raises.  Dear "real world," teachers have not received a raise in years.  We haven't even received a cost-of-living raise that most employees receive every year.

The state also wants to get rid of pay incentives for people with masters/doctorate degrees or national board certification.  Now, I was in grad school with some people that I really worried about becoming teachers, so I am not saying that a higher degree makes a better teacher.  I have also heard stories about teachers "planting" questions/comments for their students to make while they are filming their classes for board certifications.  I am not saying that 100% of us are quality teachers out there.  However, what does it say about our state's view of education when they see no benefit in rewarding or motivating their teachers to further their own educations?

I'm about to ruffle some fellow teachers' feathers, but I'm not outraged about the loss of tenure.  Well, let me say that differently.  In comparison to how outraged I am about OTHER parts of the state budget, I don't have enough energy to be AS outraged about the loss of tenure.  The second part of this (the merit-based raises) is what gets me.

This new merit-based raise sounds like a good idea until you start thinking about logistics.  First of all, it is based on student achievement.  This is like a customer service rep receiving pay raises based on customer satisfaction when they call.  If you get an irate customer, you get no raise.  It doesn't matter that the customer was already irate when they called you and that you actually calmed them down quite a bit.  If they're not singing your company's praises at the end of the call, you're a failure.  It's not really evaluating how good of a job you're doing, but how good of a job the people you interact with are doing.

My primary role as an educator is to make sure my students know more about science by their final exams than they did when they walked into my class on the first day of the semester.  I believe that teachers who can effectively do this should receive monetary compensation for this achievement.  However, there are some issues with HOW they are measuring our achievement.  The state is currently measuring this with a new state exam, the MSL.  Teachers are not allowed to administer their own exams to their own students because the state suspects we may "help" our students get the right answers.  I'd be worried about this, too, if I was paying my employees based on how their students score on this one test!  While I was not allowed to see the test (and learn what the state actually wanted my students to know), I did get to see the released practice questions from the state.  They were horrible!  Several of them were vaguely worded where multiple answers seemed logical (it's bad when teachers get together and can't discern what the "correct" answer is!) and several where the "correct" answer wasn't correct at all!

An actual sample question: What river basin do you live in?
          A. Nile River
          B. Amazon River
          C. Mississippi River
          D. Yellow River

What answer did you choose?  Well, even if you don't know much about river basins, you probably chose C, Mississippi River.  According to the state, you would be correct!  Hate to burst your bubble, though, but you're wrong.  We live east of the Appalachian Mountains, so our rivers flow into the Atlantic Ocean, not the Mississippi River.  What's my point?  My point is that the state is going to base my pay on how well my students perform on a severely-flawed test.

My second point is that student demographics are not part of the consideration at all.  There were no special accommodations on the test for my students who speak little to no English or those that usually receive modifications due to their special needs.  There was no box for me to check saying that the student went into the exam with a 30 average in the class because he/she has over 40 absences (so they missed the majority of my instruction).  There was no place to put comments about the student who was retaking Earth Science for the third time because they hate school and put in no effort all semester because they are counting down the days until they can legally drop out.  These students' results just show the state that I'm a lousy teacher...

When I was in high school, I did have a pretty lousy teacher.  True, she was dealing with a lot of health problems and we had a sub for much of the semester.  That said, I was a good enough student that I went home at night and taught myself from the textbook.  That way, I could still perform well on the tests even though we hadn't really been taught the material.  This past semester, I heard about a similar thing at my own school where students, worried about the upcoming MSL, asked another teacher for her study guides because they felt unprepared by their own teacher.  They actually got together in study groups the week before the exam and taught themselves the material because they were scared about doing poorly on their exams.  So, would this teacher have received a raise because his/her students were successful on the test?

3. Create "opportunity scholarships"
The state wants to allocate $10 million for low-income families to send their children to private schools instead of free public schools.  Senator Neal Hunt said, "We're taking folks that couldn't afford to go to a private school, giving them the opportunity to get out of a public school that's maybe not performing well."

Every student deserves a quality education.  I also fully understand that there are some subpar schools in North Carolina where students may not be receiving a quality education.  However, I have major problems with taking state funding and giving it to private schools, especially when public education is so underfunded.  That is not the solution.  Jason and I are both pro public education, but I thought he made a really good point today: "We can't afford to send our own kid to private school, so why am I paying to send another person's kid?"

I also know that not all private schools are created equally.  When I was looking to enter the teaching profession, Wake County required that I have a teaching license (no more lateral entry for them).  Several private schools I looked into had no problem with my lack of education experience.  My brother-in-law went to a private school where some of his teachers had no experience in the subjects they were teaching.  Private schools are not going to fix our lack of educated youth in this state, and devoting $10 million of the budget seems ridiculous to me.  According to one website, the average salary for Teaching Assistants in Raleigh (one of the highest-paid areas in NC) is a little over $20,000.  That $10 million could pay 500 teaching assistants' salaries.

4. Provides 5 bonus days for employees
A few words (really, I AM capable of being succinct... sometimes) about the 5 extra vacation days.  Dear General Assembly, thanks (I guess) for this little bone you're throwing us.  However, we're not allowed to take vacation days on normal school days.  We're only allowed to take vacation days on teacher workdays when we're required to work, but students are not at school.  What message does this send us?  Wouldn't you prefer for us to take advantage of our workdays and, I don't know, WORK?

I can't speak for all teachers, but I'd rather be given a check for an extra week's pay than the five vacation days.  That way, I could use that money to go out and buy my own school supplies and pencil and paper for my students who can't afford their own school supplies.  But wait, you probably didn't know we did that, did you, NC General Assembly?  Yep, you're taking away all our pay incentives, cutting our jobs, paying us some of the lowest salaries in the country, and we turn back around and buy supplies for our classes with that money.

But I thought all teachers only put in effort until they get tenure, waste away the day from bell to bell, and then drive home to their mansions?  Is that not what happens?