By Tom
I agree with Mark. The study on Washington State's National Board incentive program by the Center on Reinventing Public Education is flawed and ill-timed. I have only a couple things to add:
First of all, transferring to a challenging school in the current educational climate isn't much fun. I work in a school with a fairly high poverty rate, but not high enough for me to earn the addition $5,000. If I were to move to the next school over, however, I'd get the five grand. So why don't I? As I described in a recent post, working in a high-poverty school means almost complete focus on raising achievement scores. It means teaching math, reading and little else. And not because that's what those students need, but because that's what those students will be tested on.
If the test was on health and art, they'd be learning health and art all day.
Frankly, teaching a balanced, logical curriculum is worth $5,000 a year to me. Especially when you consider the fact that NCLB and its increasingly harsh penalties on underperforming schools and the people who work there means I'd probably be transferring to a different school before too long.
Furthermore, the CRPE study makes much of the fact that many of the new NBCTs in high-needs schools are "home-grown," as opposed to new transfers. They see this as a bad thing. I attended the original summit meeting in which the whole idea of high-needs stipend was proposed. I clearly remember the assembly concluding that the best way to increase NBCTs in high-poverty schools would be for the current teachers to successfully complete the process. That's because becoming board certified is as much a professional development process as it is an assessment. And it's also because the true experts at working with high-needs students are the teachers who work with high-needs students. Supporting them in their pursuit of National Board certification made perfect sense.
It still does.
Remember years ago when Seattle had a drought, and they begged and begged for residents to stop using water? Seattle did such a good job of conserving water that Public Utilities raised rates because they weren’t making any money.
That’s what this non-teacher backlash to the NB bonus reminds me of. Everyone was so excited about National Board Certification years ago. Apparently, they were excited because they didn’t think anyone would get it. Now, they want to find reasons to no longer have to pay for it. And by “it,” I mean that $2500 and many tens of hours thing we paid for ourselves and we did.
I don’t think requiring teachers to pay for 150 clock hours, 15 credits, or a professional cert has been proven to raise test scores either. Let’s do away with the continuing education requirement of the teaching profession and give teachers an automatic $3000 bonus every five years.
I guess, technically, I’m one of the 1% of teachers who “moved” to a high needs school four years ago when the state implemented the extra bonus. But, that’s only because my school of about 20% free and reduced lunch was closed down and merged with the other neighboring school, with a high 75% free and reduced lunch count. I was secured a teaching job there, and would be moving with most of my colleagues and students. So, it’s not quite the same. I was happy to teach at the new school and thrilled to get the bonus.
Since then, four more “homegrown” teachers and one counselor have earned their national board certificates. Two more are in the process, sending off their boxes this week. Whatever the CRPE says, this is a success. And, I know the $10,000 bonus played a role. Offering incentives for teachers within high poverty schools to better themselves and make them more effective instructors is good for everyone. This makes me think about the many schools across the country labeled “failing” and are at the stage of firing the teaching staff. What’s interesting is that many are hiring back most, if not all, of those teachers back. Professional relationships can be powerful. $5000 may not be a big enough incentive to want to start fresh again.
Tom, you make a very real point about the cost of taking the $5000 bonus in a high poverty school. Since my move, it has been unbelievably difficult to fit in content that makes learning meaningful: science, art, social studies, health. The X’s on the report card are shameful. Parents in a rich neighborhood would not allow it. It eats at my soul as I watch this happen in my own classroom. I feel so dedicated to my students, yet so frustrated I can’t give them what they need.
I think something to consider, also, is that no one becomes a teascher for the money – at least, no one that I know of. Many of us are creatures of habit who stay at the same schools until we are forced to move. It helps to have a reputation, to have had older siblings, to have an established relationship with colleagues.
Mark is absolutely right about the high transiency rate. At my “underperforming” school, when we separate out the numbers for the kids who have been in the same district, same schools for three years or more, they cease to be “failing.” I had a kid move into my 10th-grade English class the week before the HSPE from another state. His scores are going to count, and I never actually had an opportunity to teach him anything. Sadly, that is not an unusual circumstance in high-needs schools.
Another factor that limits the extent to which NBCTs can switch schools is the “last hired, first fired” aspect of many of our contracts. An experienced teacher who becomes an NBCT and decides to switch schools might be giving up seniority within their district when they change schools. $5000 more per year might feel like less when it comes with a decline in job security (perceived or real) and a non-continuing contract instead of a continuing contract.
In a way, the CRPE report relies on the premise that everyone in this business is motivated by money…which is simply not the case. When I was a first or second year teacher, you bet it was extra tough to make ends meet and I would argue hard for higher teacher pay. But by now, my wife and I have learned how to live within our means on my salary. Would more be nice? Sure, but that won’t drive my decision making.
Ultimately, a huge problem I have with NCLB and the premise of “reorganizing” is that it assumes that there is always the SAME problem which is leading schools to underperform. In some schools, maybe it is a cohort of ineffective teachers. In other schools, maybe the issue is a highly transient population. Maybe in another it is a lack of basic material resources. (This is also the root of my dissatisfaction with all the acronym fads mandated even at a local level… why not actually assess what the needs of the school are and try to address those needs?)
The logic of firing half, or all, of the teaching staff of an “underperforming” school has never made sense to me. What OSPI/WEA tried to do by supporting the challenging-schools stipend was to help cultivate professional development from within, realizing that the answers for helping “fix” challenging schools should come from within those schools, not from some ivory tower on the campus of Microsoft or a think tank populated by people who have never been on the front lines in a struggling school.