Within a week's span The Denver Post went from extolling the heroism of the Deer Creek Middle School teacher who risked his life disarming a deranged shooter to being aghast at the information that school districts in the Denver area were being profligate with tax payers' money by lavishing their teachers with things like coffee and pizza ("Extracurricular costs," February 28.2010). Three of the districts combined spent $8,300 at Starbucks. Another $113,000 was spent on pizza. The Post ended an editorial on the subject a few days later by affirming that "taxpayers are rightly tired of waste, and even abuses at the margins can hurt efforts to govern responsibly."
What do you want to bet that at the inevitable district get together honoring the Deer Creek hero the taxpayers will get soaked for cookies and lemonade?
Speaking of which, Post columnist Tina Griego wrote recently about Denver businessman Charles Lerch who had set up annual cash awards for the best teachers in Denver Public Schools. According to Griego, the reception honoring the 52nd consecutive class of nominees was held in the ad building with, in lieu of champagne and caviar, lemonade, sandwiches, and cookies. Each winner would rake in $800 with another $650 for the school. Since it was such a special occasion, there was even a photographer present to take individual portraits.
Isn't that about the most depressing thing you have ever heard? The winners will probably get photo packets in their mail boxes along with a form asking how many wallet sized snapshopts they'd like.
How do you get great teachers into the profession and how do you keep them? I don't think it is by tempting them with more money, especially in increments of $800. I think it is by somehow affording them the kind of professional respect that would move shocking revelations about Starbucks and pizza from the front page to the back of the paper where they belong. It is by admitting sometimes in schools there are many triumphs, heroic and otherwise, that warrant champagne and caviar--at least something classier than plastic cups filled with Crystal Lite and trays of cookies from the local Safeway.
That's why I am skeptical of pay for performance plans and merit pay and any other attempt to use market principles to improve education. Don't get me wrong. I would love to have been better compensated. I hate the fact that my 401K is not as big as I deserve, but that has little to do with why I became a teacher.
When I played school on our porch in Estes Park, Colorado, I was much more concerned with getting Ricky and Peggy Carmack to behave themselves than I was with compensation. And when I was student teaching for Frank Phelps at Alameda High School my attitude hadn't changed much. I was twenty-one years old and I just loved the way it felt to be in front of a classroom talking with a bunch of kids who seemed to find me fascinating. What could be better than that? As for the money? That, like everything else in my life, would take care of itself.
And what about the money? How much are we talking about? Most of the merit pay plans and pay for performance schedules end up doling out something like $2,500 on the top end. Are you seriously trying to tell me that I would have been a better, harder working, more efficient teacher with the promise of an extra twenty-five hundred bucks? It wouldn't have impressed me. After all, I thought the $6,300 I was going to earn at my first official teaching job was all the money in the world.
The idea that the deciding factor in choosing a career in teaching could be the promise of an extra $2,500 is depressing at best and horrifying at worst. I mean if you are going to be mercenary you should try setting your sights a little higher, like maybe on the credit default swap department at Goldman-Sachs.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
"Isn't that about the most depressing thing you have ever heard?"
It all is, frankly. Yeah, I know that I have taught more for love than for money. I have taught in private schools, too (English language ones, for which it is required to hold at least an MA in Education or a related field, but for which the salary base starts at an income lower than the poverty threshold). It's not any better there. No one writes about how much is spent on pizza and coffee, though.
I laughed to myself ruefully at this part: "It is by admitting sometimes in schools there are many triumphs, heroic and otherwise, that warrant champagne and caviar--at least something classier than plastic cups filled with Crystal Lite and trays of cookies from the local Safeway." I can't tell you how many school occasions I have been to with exactly that "menu" for an important meeting or event.
I'm angry at this: "Three of the districts combined spent $8,300 at Starbucks. Another $113,000 was spent on pizza." Honestly? It's not *that* much money. It really is not in the whole scheme of things, and I find it so annoying that the information would make the news this way. I want to take every journalist who decided to take the information and make it inflammatory (such crap!) and stick him or her in front of a lot of thankless, unmotivated kids for a day and try to see how well each of them does. Grrrrr. I'd bet they would want much more than a cappuccino and a slice of pepperoni after their day!
Oh the ironies you bring up. *sigh* I have to say, though, this piece has so very much of your voice in it, I honestly could hear you, Jim (can I call you "Jim" now? I am almost 42, lol), speaking in my head as I read. And I think it has been 20 years since I have even *heard* your voice. The last time was circa 1989 in Janet and Katy's living room in Ft. Collins, with Michael L also there, maybe a couple of others, too. Tanja P, I believe... I really liked "hearing" you in this piece, even if the content makes me angry and sad.
Here's something good I remember, though. The wonderful PTA at the rural NE Colorado school where I worked, who, out of their fundraising efforts, made sure that my little ESL Kindergarteners had a snack each day. A lot of the kids were on free or reduced lunches and could not afford extra snacks, plus communicating to parents who did not speak English well that the kids could even bring a snack was also a challenge. My teacher's aide and I were buying animal crackers and juice out of our own pockets until a PTA mom found out about it and when she let the PTA know, my half day Kindergarten was never out of cookies and juice thereafter.
That was not all the PTA did that year, either. They really did support teachers and out of their own personal commitment to helping as they could in a cash-strapped school. I bet no one has written about anything like that -- the millions that are raised by PTAs around the nation in support of teachers and schools.
When I think of the billions that are spent on cushy business lunches each and every day in corporate America, reading this piece just makes me simultaneously see red and cry a little.
*sigh*
I dunno what it will take for a shift of priorities to occur. I do know that this has been the same uphill battle for decades now (how to un-marginalize teaching as a profession and how to improve schools and education). While throwing more money at anything has some positive effects, I think it has more to do with the psyche of the nation and where it holds education as a priority in general. That's not something that can easily change, not without a catastrophe to do it, IMHO.
Post a Comment