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  • Arne Duncan pushes for teacher merit pay - the politics and parents' rights

Arne Duncan pushes for teacher merit pay - the politics and parents' rights

Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education, has been touring the United States speaking about changing various policies governing teacher pay and union concessions.  Mr. Duncan's plan is to recruit "highly effective teachers."  President Barack Obama has also addressed teacher merit pay and success when he called for the "end of making excuses for bad teachers."
 
Mr. Duncan pushes his message forward despite vocal opposition from teachers unions and its members. Indeed, the unions' entire basis for membership is its promise to defend tenure, the act of securing its teachers' employment after a certain number of years of employment.  A tenured teacher cannot be terminated except under a rare circumstance.
 
Duncan believes that student achievement ought to be a factor in how teachers are evaluated. He said, "Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation or tenure decisions. That would never make sense.  But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible.”
 
Many teachers oppose the merit pay push as well, asserting that state test scores should not be considered in teaching evaluations. 

Certainly, most of us can agree that test scores are not the measure by which teachers should be judged. It makes sense because students’ background and learning paces vary.  Even our president is wary of using test scores as a measure of teachers’ performance, he vowed to find a "better way to track student progress in order to determine teacher accountability."
 
 
One outstanding middle school teacher in California, known as MW, addressed the issue of merit pay and state accountability tests.  He had an interesting perspective to the testing-accountability-merit argument.  MW told me that he is in favor of using the state testing results as a measure of accountability for teachers provided that, "a pre-test at the start of the year is contrasted with the results of the test results in the Spring."  I asked MW if he teaches toward the test during the year or if he knows anyone who does.  His response was casual and included a genuine smile, "No. Nobody I know has any reason to use our teaching time to enhance test performance.  These kids always do well on the test because they learn plenty along the way."  
 
Is this an isolated opinion?  It could be, based on the boos and hisses from Mr. Duncan's audience from his recent conference discussing the topic of merit.

Why is it nearly impossible to fire a low performing teacher? Particularly now, when money is so limited, tough decisions about who stays or goes should be heavily weighed. 

How much influence does the unions have in the personnel matters of the public education system? In a word: plenty. It is difficult to imagine anybody wanting to create obstacles for the termination of a poorly performing teacher. However, the unions make costly restrictions for firing a tenured teacher and will support the offending teacher in legal actions. This has caused school districts to be overcome with legal fees and time-consuming procedures sometimes taking years to accomplish with appeals.

At stake for the unions: their own relevance. Teachers’ unions have to create a following for membership whereby promising security for its members who pay the dues. Teachers’ unions have such a hold on the legislature by virtue of their lobbying power and campaign contributions, making reform nearly impossible.

The result of keeping contracted teachers employed is a practice of transferring an offending teacher within the school district if that teacher has poor performance at the preceding school site. According to Teachersunionexposed.com, this practice is called "the dance of the lemons" or "passing the trash."

Many well-meaning parents may make a formal complaint about a teacher’s performance or behavior to the school’s principal.  Many of us have been taught to go through the chain of command. Fortunately, teacher accountability is in the hands of parents more than they know. 

Prior to making a formal complaint under the California Education Code, the California Department of Education requests that you first talk to "your local district administration for information on their employee grievance process." 

However, if you have exhausted other remedies, you are well within your right to contact the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to file a complaint against the offending teacher’s credential. After an affidavit under penalty of perjury is filed with the agency, an investigation will commence. Education Code section 44242.5 states in part as follows: "Each allegation of an act or omission by an applicant for, or holder of, a credential for which he or she may be subject to an adverse action shall be presented to the Committee of Credentials."

What the California Commission of Teacher Credentialing is examining is "probable cause," the standard in which the amount of proof determines that a contract can be severed.

Section 44242.5 (e) (1) concludes that "if probable cause exists," ... the commission will render "appropriate adverse action." In short, the teacher will be terminated upon a determination that probable cause was proven.

"Our challenge is to make sure every child in America is learning from an effective teacher, no matter what it takes," Duncan announced at the National Education Association in San Diego.  Boos, hisses and all, Mr. Duncan's words did not fall on deaf ears.  Parents and concerned citizens hear his message loud and clear.


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