State Teacher Team

My first face-to-face meeting with the State Teacher Advisory Council was very energizing.  I did my best to represent our region well.  I only wish our session could have been longer! 

We discussed several initiatives up for consideration by the new legislature.
1- Elimination of tenure- Outside of a school building, the perception is that tenure is a way of protecting "bad" teachers.  In reality, our current tenure process recognizes experienced teachers who have performed well on evaluations and sets up a due process procedure if problems later arise.  Yes, tenured teachers cannot be fired for any arbitrary reason but administrators can document problems, create action plans, and then, if there is not improvement, the teacher may be let go.  As the tenure question is discussed, we need to speak up and let the community know the truth about this process.

2-Pay for performance and Standard Six- Many districts around the nation are starting to use student performance on standardized tests as a factor in evaluating teacher performance and therefore a basis for pay levels.  The team discussed concerns about how this could be implemented fairly since several groups of teachers do not participate in standardized testing.  What a blow to morale if the math teacher's pay depends on test scores but the elementary music teacher's pay does not.  Dr. Atkinson reported that at a national superintendent's meeting, many state school leaders reported problems with the pay for performance implementation.  During our meeting, we talked about giving more weight to ratings on Standards 1-5 should pay-for-performance pass.  The team felt like doing well in areas 1-5 should evidence itself in better student performance naturally without worrying about one test.  We need to let our legislators know how we feel about this idea.

3- Reading standard for 3rd grade- Under the guise of promoting literacy and eliminating "social" promotions, a proposal has been made to require all 3rd graders pass a standardized reading test or FAIL.  As an EC teacher, I know that most children can learn to read, even those with disabilities, but many need help to do so.  Just failing a child will not improve their reading.  If literacy is a concern, why wait until 3rd grade.  If students are not meeting target skills in 1st or 2nd, we should give them extra instruction or refer for evaluations, not wait for bad news on a standardized test.  We in Wilson know the results of any automatic fail policy....13 year olds in the 3rd grade, 18 year olds in middle school...can you imagine what this would look like on a statewide scale?  We're working hard in Wilson to correct this problem, we cannot let it happen to the whole state.  SPEAK UP!  Let our legislators know your experiences, your opinions!