ARTICLE TOOLS
Text Size: A
A
A
A
Hamilton County: Bonus pay lures teachers
 | |
|
| |
| Jamie Bassham | |
Some teachers in Hamilton County make more money because they do the jobs no one else wants: teach in urban, high-poverty schools.
Other teachers earn extra cash for their level of education or whether their students do well on standardized tests.
Using money to lure teachers to otherwise undesirable jobs is one of the few things presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama agree on, but it’s also an issue that has riled teachers in Hamilton County and around the nation.
Many say the only objective way to see whether a teacher is adding value to their students’ education — standardized test scores — also provides an incomplete picture of all a teacher does.
“We’re not against being held accountable. There is no problem with that,” said Sharon Vandagriff, president of the Hamilton County Education Association. “But rather than basing it on one test score, let’s look at other indicators of performance.”
Hamilton County’s differentiated pay plan — also known in school districts across the nation as merit or performance pay — has been around since 2002, but this year it has a new component. Now Superintendent Jim Scales and human resources administrators can offer principals and teachers a signing bonus of $10,000 to $20,000 if they sign on for a job the district has had difficulty filling.
“If we had a principal vacancy in a very hard-to-staff urban school and we know from experience that it’s hard to recruit, we could use that,” said Connie Atkins, assistant superintendent for human resources.
This year, the school system used the signing bonus to help fill only one position: an exceptional education teacher at East Lake Academy.
Last year, 86 teachers in the district received some kind of differentiated pay, and Ms. Atkins estimated that about 75 would earn it this school year.
STATE LAW
Tennessee and Georgia have enacted laws that require school districts to create differentiated pay plans to close achievement gaps by attracting high-quality teachers to low-performing schools with extra money.
For details, visit www.tennessee.gov/education/support/diff_pay.shtml and www.nea.org/achievement/ga.html.
CANDIDATE POSITIONS
* Sen. John McCain: “John McCain will devote 60 percent of Title II funding for incentive bonuses for high performing teachers to locate in the most challenging educational settings, for teachers to teach subjects like math and science, and for teachers who demonstrate student improvement. Funds should also be devoted to provide performance bonuses to teachers who raise student achievement and enhance the schoolwide learning environment.”
* Sen. Barack Obama: “Districts will be able to design programs that reward accomplished educators who serve as a mentor to new teachers with a salary increase. Districts can reward teachers who work in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well.”
Sources: johnmccain.com, barackobama.com
DIFFERENTIATED PAY
Among the ways Hamilton County teachers are eligible to earn extra money:
* Teach math at Howard or Brainerd high schools
* Teach at one of 21 hard-to-staff elementary and middle schools
* Earn national board certification
Source: Hamilton County Department of Education
The problem with paying certain teachers more money for doing a good job is that some teachers are ineligible, Apison Elementary assistant principal LaFrederick Thirkill said. When Mr. Thirkill taught music part time at Orchard Knob Elementary, the school’s staff won a team bonus because their students’ scores increased, but he never got an extra penny, he said.
“My beef has always been there are many other people who play a vitally important role in enhancing student learning and achievement, yet they are not given credit for their work,” he said. “All those extras like ESL (English as a Second Language), related arts teachers, they are not included in the differentiated pay because they don’t have a classroom.”
This year’s differentiated pay plan states that part-time guidance counselors and music and physical education teachers are eligible for the team bonus using a prorated pay scale. However, only teachers at Brainerd and Howard, as well as 21 high-poverty elementary and middle schools, are eligible for any kind of bonus other than earning national board certification.
Ms. Atkins said the district would like to make bonuses available to all teachers in all subject areas, but there isn’t enough money.
Mr. Thirkill said his students would come back to him after taking standardized tests and say they remembered the science, math and reading strategies he often would incorporate into his music lessons.
“You get many people who equally affect student learning, yet they are not considered when it comes down to rewarding their efforts,” he said.
But rewarding certain teachers’ efforts with more money may be the only way to convince them to do the job, some teachers say.
Jamie Bassham, 42, teaches math at Brainerd High School and said the $2,500 signing bonus she received three years ago, plus the opportunity to earn a $5,000 performance bonus like the one she received last year, is what convinced her to take the job.
Before Brainerd, the 16-year teaching veteran was happy at Tyner Academy, she said, but with two children to put through college the extra cash was appealing.
“The money is the reason I went to Brainerd,” she said. “It’s a little harder job, a harder environment, and it’s further away from my home.”
Ms. Bassham said all teachers deserve to get more money and to be rewarded for their work, but she still thinks the district’s differentiated pay plan is fair.
“I think I worked very hard for (the bonus),” she said. “In order to get good teachers into these lower-performing schools, it is a draw.”
Share This...
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
del.icio.us
digg
Furl
YahooMyWeb
co.mments
Ma.gnolia
blogmarks
BlinkList
NewsVine
scuttle
Fark
This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Chattanooga Publishing Company, Inc.
Comments
[Great reporting, Ms Gauthier.]
Ms Atkins, et al, are treating incentive bonuses as across the board pay raises for any and all teachers, regardless of their discipline and/or student performance. They aren't.
It is INCENTIVE pay for the relatively few teachers who really teach and have high performing students. It is MEANT to be discriminating to encourage excellence in teaching. It is NOT something given to a teacher or any admin or team person simply because he/she shows up for work each day.
Sorry, Charlie, but perhaps some teachers are in the wrong areas -- we need fewer empathetic, feel-good teachers and more of the iron-willed, high performing types in the important disciplines. That is EXACTLY what incentive pay gives us. Anyone can act as indirect support staff and they deserve few extras, including a "team bonus", whatever that is -- the name itself is scary and implies "teach by committee". We all know how THAT works. Few of these can really teach.
Regardless of the importance of music, sports, English as a second language, "basket weaving" and certainly the admin support side, they contribute essentially nothing in the reading, writing, hard science and mathematics areas -- areas where we are woefully behind and noncompetitive in the world. We are graduating students who cannot properly speak and especially write English as a FIRST language. [Read any text messages lately?]
Football/baseball/Phys Ed and other unrelated-to-hardcore-teaching activities waste student time and school resources in the fight for increased student performance necessary to meet life's globally competitive job-skill demands.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.