Obama will need to replace educators from his 2008 coalition. He's going to lose a lot of teachers

[Orlandodem]

who voted for him if he keeps stabbing them in the back.

What you need to know about merit pay for teachers (and why)
By Dana Goldstein
With President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan hinting that school reform could be the big bipartisan focus of 2011, it’s an exciting time to be an education writer. At Time, Andy Rotherham outlines why it could be difficult for Democrats and Republicans to work together on education nevertheless; in short, the standards and accountability movement that rose to prominence in the 1990s and coalesced around No Child Left Behind is under attack from both the conservative wing of the GOP and (to a lesser extent) the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, both of which are skeptical of standardized testing and top-down education mandates.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be movement. For reasons I explain over at my blog, if an education policy compromise does emerge between the Obama administration and the John Boehner-led Republicans, it will probably be around merit pay for teachers. So it’s worth explaining what the trends are in merit pay and what the best social science research tells about the efficacy of the policy for raising student achievement.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/11/what_you_need_to_know_about_me.html

[Turbineguy]

1. In Washington State

all the initiatives involving school funding failed. I wonder if the national discussion had a strong influence here.

Funding schools is a bit of a leap of faith. You find out if you were correct when 20 years later you don't have to build new prisons.

[mediaman007]

2. We found out in Arizona that some people are betting on building more prisons!

[Catshrink]

3. Indeed.

Russell Pearce is no friend of public education. Some day I'll look back and say "Hey, in 2010 I 'only' had 35 in a class - sure would be better than the 50 I have now." That is, if public schools survive the charter push that is sure to come with Hup as SPI. He's taking his policy right from Jebbie.

[Reader Rabbit]

4. Merit pay for teachers will never succeed.

People don't go into teaching for the money. They do it because they care about kids and the future. Holding out a little extra money is insulting. It implies that teachers are somehow "holding back", but that for a few extra coins, they'll give it their full effort. Most teachers are already giving more than 100%, and are still being vilified by this administration.

Message to President Obama and Secretary Duncan: Teachers aren't prostitutes. We don't pursue our calling for a few bills on the nightstand. Stop treating us as if we would.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Whoa. This one's a *rocket*. nt

[Reader Rabbit]

10. Sorry to be crude, but that's basically how I see it.

Politicians are so used to whoring for corporate interests that they assume everyone is motivated by the same shallow materialism and greed. Fuck that. Money helps pay the bills, but for those who are evolved, there are far more worthy things to be motivated by.

[Smarmie Doofus]

19. That's not crude; it's INSIGHT.

>>>>People don't go into teaching for the money. They do it because they care about kids and the future. Holding out a little extra money is insulting. It implies that teachers are somehow "holding back", but that for a few extra coins, they'll give it their full effort. Most teachers are already giving more than 100%, and are still being vilified by this administration.

Message to President Obama and Secretary Duncan: Teachers aren't prostitutes. We don't pursue our calling for a few bills on the nightstand. Stop treating us as if we would.>>>>>


Frankly... the same thought's been rolling around in the back of my head for some time now, but your post put in in *words*. Which it didn't really have up til now.


".. they assume that everyone is motivated by the same shallow materialism and greed."

Freud and his disciples stumbled over this about a century ago: PROJECTION. It goes a long way to explaining why they insist that they know how to improve education..... in spite of the fact that they have no *experience *in education.

It explains why they never hear... or if they do hear they never *get* what we're talking about. It also explains why I never fail to be baffled by their insistence on and persistence in going back to pay incentives... and it's variations.

I shall now be a tad less baffled.

I've sat thru my share of inane conversations in the faculty lunchroom. None ever included... "Man... if they gave me 5 thousand more per year I'd really work so much harder." Or even words to that effect.

[Starry Messenger]

11. You said it.

:thumbsup: x 1000 If they have extra money to throw around, I'd rather they were plowing it into classroom supplies. Merit pay should be renamed "failure fines", since it will penalize anyone who is in a school where the scores don't budge much.

[jpak]

5. The GOP is going to get rid of lots and lots of teachers next year

Here in Maine our new teabagger governor is Paul LePage - rural voters put him over the top - and he won with only 38% of the vote.


Rural Maine is about to get The Full LePage...


LePage and the GOP will slash state support for education to balance the budget.

LePage and the GOP will cut taxes and further reduce state spending on education (see above).

The tax burden to fund schools will be shifted to these small towns.

Our new GOP Congress will also not "bail out" struggling states to keep teachers in the classroom (like Obama and the Dems).

So....

Rural Maine communities will have 2 choices - fire teachers or raise property taxes.

They cannot raise property taxes in a recession - so they will lay off teachers.

LePage also opposes wind farms - which many small Maine rural communities see as a means to lower their property taxes.

If they can't build the wind farms- what will be their options?

Fire more teachers.

If LePage enacts a voucher system (like he says he wants) and bases teacher pay on improving student performance - the best students in rural schools will go elsewhere. The poorest performing students will remain and erode teacher pay. If those remaining students want to get out of their "badder" local school they will use vouchers to *try* to go elsewhere as well (that is if the Cherry-Pickin' Charter Schools will let them in - lol!).

The result?

Teachers will abandon rural schools to go elsewhere and public school systems in rural Maine will collapse.

Hello Governor LePage

Goodbye Rural Maine

[peace13]

14. Ohio's new GOP Governor just announced privatizing parts of public education,

questioning the unionizing of teachers and grouping local school boards together. Too funny that people on DU think it is our president, who encourages the young to get educated, is the problem here.

[stray cat]

6. The GOP cuts in discretionary spending would decimate teachers

Teachers and education are funded by government and taxes. However, if the teachers want to sacrifice their jobs I guess it would decrease the deficit. I kind of want to keep mine.

[msongs]

8. "change we can believe in" meets "mission accomplished" nt

[Dappleganger]

9. I see the unreccers are out in full force..

Face the facts, unreccers--the president has lost the support of teachers because of these practices.

[Reader Rabbit]

13. It would be interesting if Skinner performed an audit.

I'm curious to know who, exactly, does all the anonymous unreccing, what their IP's are, and who is behind them. Is there truly a large cadre who disagrees with treating teachers as respected professionals, or are there merely a handful individuals with multiple accounts that allow them to perform multiple unrecs?

Maybe the system should be adapted so that no one may rec or unrec without posting.

[peace13]

15. Skinner loves the UR.

How many times have we suggested that it was not a positive here on DU, yet it prevails? Don't let the UR's get you down. We are surrounded by idiots who quite frankly should go somewhere else to play.

[madfloridian]

12. I fear Obama will never veto any GOP education proposals.

He seems to be on the same page as them.

[LWolf]

16. He's already lost many.

Democrats worrying about losing votes might want to take a look at what is driving many traditionally democratic groups away in droves. Adopting unfriendly conservative republican policies will do that.

Democrats who enable that adoption have only themselves to blame.

[muddrunner17]

17. If crime increases, would we blame the police?

Can you imagine what would happen if we had merit pay for police. How many false arrests would be made? In my state I know that our state police are underpaid. Some would have a great deal of pressure put on them just to pay the bills. Likewise, I think there would be teachers who feel compelled to do the same. Some already have implicit support from their administrators to cheat on tests and that would only increase with financial pressure. I don't think police or teachers go into their profession to get rich. The vast majority of them want to benefit the communities that they serve. Every time we see a bad teacher or cop, as a society, we wrongly vilify those entire professions. There is not an epidemic of bad teachers or cops. We need to be looking to them for solutions to our problems rather than the causes of them.

[bbgrunt]

18. great point.

[Reader Rabbit]

20. Despite the unreccers, this thread is now at +6! Hah!

In your face, teacher bashers!

Yes, I am puerile. What of it?