Posted on 02/02/2007 1:33:38 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Four San Antonio schools have rejected nearly $300,000 in bonus money for teachers because school leaders worried that the cash rewards would create dissention and ruin the atmosphere of teamwork at the schools.
The schools — all in the San Antonio Independent School District — were eligible for the money because they serve primarily low-income students and post high test scores. The grants are part of a $100 million incentive pay program approved by the Legislature last year.
Briscoe Academy, Highland Park, Hillcrest and Lamar elementary schools qualified for grants ranging from $45,000 to $90,000 per school. That would have translated into cash bonuses for individual teachers of anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000. A total of 39 San Antonio schools qualified for the program.
"There was no hesitation in saying no," said Gracie Oviedo, a third-grade teacher at Highland Park Elementary. "We've worked very hard to build teams and build families at our school and the money would just cause division. We would rather turn down money than build divisiveness."
At Highland Park, staff and faculty felt there was no equitable way to distribute the money and that coming up with a plan would take too much time — time that could be spent benefiting students. The reasons were similar at all four San Antonio schools.
Incentive pay for teachers is a controversial subject nationwide. Houston ISD, the largest urban district in the nation to develop its own merit pay program, handed out its first bonus checks last week and spawned a backlash from teachers who didn't make the cut. About a dozen states have launched incentive pay programs — most drawing harsh criticism from teacher unions.
Texas' program is touted as the nation's largest. Gov. Rick Perry got the ball rolling in 2005 with a three-year, $10 million pilot program created by executive order.
Legislators made the $100 million statewide program part of school finance legislation last year.
Shelley Potter, president of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel, said she had hoped that lawmakers would wait to see how Perry's program fared before expanding it statewide. She said the alliance backs the decision of the campus leaders at the schools that refused the money.
"They felt like the results at their schools were because of teamwork and they didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that teamwork," Potter said.
Statewide, 54 schools rejected the money.
DeEtta Culbertson, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency, said the schools did not have to give a reason, but many said it was because teachers opposed the idea. Others didn't want to deal with coming up with a plan to split the money. The program stipulates that 75 percent of the money has to be spent on classroom teacher bonuses. The remainder can go for other staff bonuses — for administrators, special-area teachers, librarians, or support staff such as cafeteria workers, janitors or secretaries — or be spent on staff development.
Oviedo said the 75/25 split was one of the problems her school had with the plan.
"The para-professionals, the cafeteria workers, they all play a big part in what we do," she said. "We understand we can not do our jobs without them"
Jones Middle School in Northside was the first in San Antonio's largest district to benefit from the governor's incentive plan last year. Coming up with a plan to split the money was so frustrating that Principal Erika Foerster asked Superintendent John Folks if the school could give the money back.
Folks didn't give Northside schools the option of refusing the money. Even though the process is hard, Folks said he doesn't want to pass up an opportunity to reward teachers.
Instead, school representatives spent weeks hammering out a plan that gave every employee something, ranging from $150 to more than $4,000.
"Some schools felt like it tore their school apart," said Linda Mora, Northside's deputy superintendent for instruction.
Some schools are benefiting from the decisions of others to give the money back. Northside had nine schools qualify for the bonuses this year, but after schools from across the state rejected the money, the district got the news that one more school — Valley HiElementary — would qualify.
"It's a difficult process, but anytime we can put money in teachers' hands, we're going to do it," Mora said.
Potter said her organization came up with guidelines that stress a collaborative process and universal buy-in from stakeholders to help schools who qualify for the money. The alliance, she said, supports schools whether they decide to accept or reject the money, but Potter does have concerns about plans that reward teachers for student test performance.
"A whole lot of people already think there's too much emphasis on testing and when you start attaching money to test scores it just ratchets that up to a whole new level," Potter said. "The consequences of that could be really, really bad."
Amazing...
Teacher battles over who gets merit pay make me wonder if the problem for the teachers not getting the merit pay is that they spent a lot of time on PC indoctrination, and the kids were tested on the three R's for the bonus paychecks. Oops!
Teachers unions, like most unions, object to merit pay. It's just not fair to the slackers.
Good little socialists teaching the kids to be more of the same.
This doesn't happen by chance. The teachers' unions have organized an effort to prevent incentives.
Actually, the rewards are there. They just refuse to allow merit to prevail in getting them.
Another example of schools failing. The reporter can't even spell. There's no such word as "dissention."
I'm assuming she meant "dissension."
The "winners" won't say anything in the face of this object nonsense but rather will leave to teach somewhere else.
I don't want to hear any more whining about they don't get paid enough. The public school system is run by teachers' unions. Public schools get 50%+ of all state budgets and more money comes from the federal govt, etc, etc.
They have more money than they need.
Public education is an incompetent, graft-ridden socialist enterprise.
As a former teacher of English at the high school level, I believe excellence is its own reward. And because that particular value has been "lost," so has excellence.
This is true however you should never be forced to compare yourself with the worst. If you have ambition, drive and ability you should be rewarded.
The teachers could have set a good example by showing that excellence is rewarded. They should have posted the awards and held ceremonies at the schools. But they won't because parents would all want the good teachers for their children. Honoring those who did more (produced more) would have damaged the socialist mindset of public education, therefore quality is lost.
Bonuses based on rankings destroys teamwork. I've seen it happen countless times. The greedy ones in the bunch undermine the rest. Pay 'em all or pay none of them if you want a good organization. Paying teachers bonuses is a ridiculous concept. Pay car salesmen bonuses. Not teachers.
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Bravo sierra!
Writtten as from one who is perennially at the low end of the performance distribution.
"Teamwork" is a union-promoted bunch of pap.
Children are not inspired to achieve by mediocre "teams".
Children are inspired to excellence by excellent individual teachers
"Featherbedding" by unions wishing to protect the lazy and incompetent is pure Marxist bunk.
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The American education system does not need a "good organization" (alias for "Union"). Take your socialist tripe to DU or KOS -- it does not belong here.
Competition produces excellence in the market place and monopoly does not. Apply the anti-monopoly laws to the schools and you'll really see them take off.
Better people and methods will be drawn into the schools and those that can't make it will fail. The real winners will be the kids.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
The great concept of learning in teams is one of the new ways to teach math.
I believe the idea is to put one smart student with three struggling students and let them teach and/or give the answers on the test.
The teachers don't have a clue, so they've learned to improvise.
Thank you for taking the time to list all the ills of society.
I suggest you get on the side of getting rid of the current mess that passes for education instead of having to resort to such a laundry list of excuses why public education doesn't work.
Isn't that getting a bit weary? We all know the problems.
Parents are told to bake cookies (or cut carrots) and stay out of the way because the schools know best.
Schools move the bad (including criminal) teachers around.
School administrators steal from schools.
Universities have to test to know which remedial classes incoming freshmen need.
Homework is so bad parents are pulling their hair out. What the hell are they teaching in school?
Why can't students (especially boys) run off some energy?
If you can't teach because there are disruptive kids in the class, raise a stink! But then you can't, can you, because you'll be a trouble maker and the lawyers will breath down the schools neck -- and they won't fight -- they'll just buy-off the problem with all that taxpayer's money that they didn't earn.
Why do administrators make so much money?
I do not lump all teachers together but if you keep stay in the barrel filled with rotten apples, how can you tell the difference?
I could go on and on and on but you get where I'm coming from.
Poilitics plays a role in every organization, however when you introduce incentives like this into organizations that have long been dominated by politics, it rapidly turns into bloodsport. Part of the *legitimate* problem is that there has not been a meritocracy for a long time, wheras if things had started out that way, financial incentives would be melded and everyone would know how to act. Large incentives introduced suddenly have a tendency to create corruption before the social and moral mechanisms are in place.
Para-professionals. I can honestly say I haven't heard this one before.
I'm all for merit raises. Raising somebody's pay just cuz they've been there longer is an idiotic way to do things that creates lazy people. Kinda like tenure :-)
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