Regarding the back-and-forth with James Forman Jr. on merit pay (where I was pessimistic that dysfunctyional school systems could actually be trusted to handle merit pay) one other DFER friend from Milwaukee notes:
Saint Anthony School of Milwaukee is the nation’s largest Catholic grade school and educates over 1000 Hispanic children as part of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.
This past spring, I proposed a merit pay plan called the Achievement Reward Program modeled after the program in use in several schools in Little Rock, AR. Our 50+ faculty members approved the program with a 96% approval.
The program pays each teacher graduated bonuses for each student’s Normal Curve Equivalent gains in reading and math. The teacher is not in competition with other teachers. Her bonus is based on the gains of her children only. The bonus is based on individual student gains and not class or schoolwide gains.
A teacher can gain from $50-$200 per child based on the percentage growth in NCE gains from September to May in both reading and math. A teacher can earn up to $4000 in bonuses for reading gains and up to $4000 in bonuses for math gains. This would be possible if 20 of her math students and 20 of her reading students each had a 15% or more gain on their NCE score from September to May.
Merit pay was one of our latest reforms. I think we have implemented most of the research-based reforms in the last four years. Extended school day, data-based and assessment-based decision making, three tier interventions in reading and math, three tier assessments, Direct Instruction reading and math, Core Knowledge content sequence, etc.
I bring the previous reform culture to your attention, because merit pay was not a very big leap for our teachers. They had three years of increasing accountability for results, had seen the gains they were making with children, and now thought it was a good idea to get paid for their results.
Also, regarding this post on generational differences and whether or not teachers at unionized charter schools have actually chosen to work there on their own accord, two readers found fault with my post. One charter school friend accused me of “pimping for the UFT again.” Huh?????
Another wrote:
I have to mention that you let (EdWize blogger Leo Casey) off the hook for one particularly egregious statement: that we don’t know how charter school employees feel about unions because they haven’t had a representation election.
Um, when was the last union representation election in NYC public schools? Unless I’m sadly mistaken, it was Dec. 16, 1961. I submit that the number of those who voted that day who are still teaching can be counted on one hand, while a majority of the city’s current teachers weren’t born yet.
If that’s his criterion, why doesn’t UFT hold a new election and find out if maybe its own members wouldn’t prefer NEA representation? Or maybe a new union with fewer overpaid blogging employees?