Delaware Teacher: "Gov. Jack Markell — I Am Really Beginning To Believe It’s As Simple As This: You Don’t Get It."

The title quote is from Mike Matthews' must-read post HERE.

The problem with this whole Teacher Bonus/Mortgage Reduction plan is it assumes teachers care only about money. Give a teacher $10,000 and he or she will uproot him or herself from a job in a less-high-needs school and move to a high-needs school that is often fraught with poverty and many student-behavioral issues. Oh, and by the way, once you finish your two years in that high-needs school, you will have NO RIGHT TO RETURN to your old school.
This bonus program is divisive at its core. It leaves out large swaths of teachers: specialists, art teachers, psychologists, educational diagnosticians, career and technical educators. Teachers who show amazing scores on the state standardized tests are the only ones who qualify.
And yet Gov. Markell continues to tout the benefits of this program. He seriously believes those teachers getting great student test scores will be “Attracted” to this program. (It’s called the Talent Attraction and Retention program. High-performing teachers in affluent schools can be “attracted” to high needs schools OR high-performing teachers in low-performing schools can be “retained” in those schools.)
And yet some people really don’t get it. For the most part, I’ve found my district administrators’ views on this bonus program to be simpatico with the teachers in my district. However, Michelle Duke, a principal from Suuth Dover Elementary School, said this:

“The idea of rewarding high-performing teachers makes some educators nervous,” said Michelle Duke, principal at South Dover Elementary. “I don’t understand why, CEOs and bank presidents don’t apologize when they’re rewarded. Neither do professional athletes. Yet you are the ones who have your hands on the future.”

Education is not corporate America. I find this quote troubling. When I worked at ING Direct, I had no problem with the bonuses. There was a level playing field whereby all Associates could set meaningful and challenging goals and work towards achieving them. There was a definite overarching sense of EQUITY in how the performance rewards were handed out every year. Need I remind Ms. Duke of the blueberry story?
These bonuses are bad. I’m proud that the teachers in my District voted last year to recommend to our superintendent that our District not participate in them. They are exclusionary by definition and they do NOTHING to help solve the challenges that so many of our highest-needs schools face on a day-to-day basis. The governor really needs to start listening to the folks in the classrooms on this one and not the education reformers he’s stacked his administration with since day one.
For those interested, here is the NBC10 piece for which I was interviewed today.

I am severely behind in my Education updates but the new Teacher Bonuses and Reduced Mortgage Program I heard about on Rick Jensen's WDEL show yesterday can't be ignored.

John Young was on with Rick and quoted in (News Journal) Matthew Albright's story ~ Mortgage help an incentive for teachers in bonus program

Teachers who actually earned bonuses will be working in 13 schools with “at-risk” student populations. Of those, almost half are charter schools, and the rest come from four traditional school districts.
State officials say the program is a way of attracting and keeping top teaching talent in schools that need the expertise most urgently.
“We really believe that this investment in you is an investment in our future,” Markell told a gathering of teachers participating in the program Monday night.http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=32087412#editor/target=post;postID=1892150384966664285
But the bonuses are controversial among some school boards and educators who think it’s exclusive and unfair.
The Christina school board, for example, publicly battled the state over the program, refusing to implement it even after the state withdrew $2.3 million in Race to the Top money.
John Young, who was one of the board’s most vocal critics of the bonuses, said he’s “disappointed” that the state is ratcheting up the program despite the outcry.
“There are hard-working educators dedicated to teaching in high-needs schools who won’t see a dime of this,” Young said. “A lot of really good teachers in Red Clay and Christina and all these other districts are not eligible for this really nice perk.”
Young said he and many teachers are still not convinced that the state’s teacher evaluation system is fair. They say students’ test scores aren’t adjusted to account for problems that students may face outside their control, like broken families, poverty and crime.
Young called the bonus program “a political ploy” meant to curry favor with federal leaders who favor such programs.
“What these bonuses say is, play with my administration the right way and you’ll be rewarded,” he said. “This is all about supporting the governor’s agenda. It’s not about kids.”
The Delaware State Education Association, the statewide teacher’s union, is skittish about the cooperative. President Frederika Jenner said her group prefers programs that reward whole schools or teams of teachers, rather than individuals.

Meanwhile, DE Charter Schools Network is giving out its own set of awards.....

And there is so much more to link to but for now, this is a great new blog - Parents of Christina - to read.

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