I've been hemming, hawing, and debating the new contract, and finally have a little bit of confidence in it. It's still a bit of a cautious confidence, but I like some things about it. The BTU representative, plus a high school teacher on the negotiating committee, visited our school today and I feel quite a bit better about things.
My personal take:
1) My salary will remain almost exactly the same (a $195 raise) except for the one-time raises this year and next year. However, if I get a bunch of AUs -- 12 -- I can move up an "increment," which is about a $2500 raise.
2) No one knows what an AU is or how to get them -- exactly -- except that if you take classes, you get one AU per credit. They're "saying" there will be other ways to get them, and there will be a committee set up that is half-union, but this is still a bit of a worry. However, it also seems we can get them (12) if we get a Proficient evaluation, so that's good, and 9 if you get a satisfactory.
3) What made me excited about the contract initially was the ability to become a "Master Teacher," which would mean a $20,000 raise. There is no word on how this might happen, though, so that leads me to believe it will be very difficult. Which I suppose it should be, with all that money. Of course I will go for it right away but I'm not sure if it's possible.
The question of student performance is a state law. I was turned off by the union representative's repeated assertion that the contract and the student performance piece are totally disconnected, because, while it's true it's the state law, the contract will tie it to our evaluation and thus our salary. This ups the ante on it from it just being a state law. This, of course, is disquieting, because we have no idea how this will be measured, particularly with non-HSA courses. Still, I think I will still be able to get my usual Proficient evaluation. I hope so, at least. I never really cared about evaluations before or found them to be very meaningful; now, I suppose, it will really matter.
My fears:
1) That the offices set up at North Avenue to handle all the AU-certification and all peer review panels will be a bundle of red tape. The union rep assured us that if this happens, there are contingencies to escape the contract.
2) That teachers will be on AU-snatching crusades all the time instead of doing actual teaching. The union rep today discussed planning after school "collaboration" as a possible AU. This seems fishy as hell to me.
3) That no one will actually become 'Master Teachers' because of red tape or because the specifications will be nearly impossible to meet.
However, these fears are being outweighed by excitement. Most importantly, I was able to hear from an actual teacher in a high school who had been part of the negotiating team. There's a real passion in what she says and I needed to hear that. She was kind of pie-in-the-sky, but that's okay; we need optimism and the current system clearly isn't working.
I'd be voting for it if I could, wasn't going out of town for my sister's wedding.
I worry that this will not pass. If it doesn't, it stems from the BTU's uniquely bad communication. Today, for example, we get an e-mail at 1:00 p.m. about an informational meeting at the BTU headquarters about the contract. The meeting was at 5:00 p.m. They give us four hours notice. What a travesty, truly.
The BTU website is unattractive and, while it has the jargon-y and difficult-to-understand contract documents, it is not very helpful. They're letting the entire education conversation in Baltimore City to be dominated by Inside Ed, which has its own share of problems (slow, dominated by complainers, lack of presence from all sides of issues). If it fails, it's on BTU, which will be a bummer.
Today, we had inflammatory and inaccurate fliers in our mailboxes saying the new contract will give the principals all the power. That's the sort of thing BTU is meagerly fighting, not very well.
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11 comments:
A few comments, based on my understanding of the documents and the discussion with the union rep who visited our school last week:
While I'd like to hear how else AUs can be earned (e.g. attending national conferences in summer?), they've also stated AUs may be earned via our end-of-year evaluations. A proficient eval will mean an automatic 12 AUs (and therefore bump up to the next salary level). A satisfactory eval will yield 9 AUs (and therefore need a 3-credit course, or 3 other AUs to get a raise, or just wait another year for raise).
Model teachers I believe would be decided on by a vote of the 8-member "peer review panel", composed of 4 board appointees and 4 union appointees. What is needed to become a model teacher has been deliberately left vague, so that you (or I) would have to make our case before the panel that we deserve to be model teachers. The only guideline I've heard about is mentoring new teachers. Probably more guidelines will emerge as the panel is formed, develops, and meets its first applicants this January.
I echo your fear of red tape, but that is something I'm willing to go with if the other benefits outweigh. I think I would definitely see some larger-than-usual raises over the next few years, which is good of course for my own self-interest :-)
My biggest two concerns are 1) not knowing anything about how evaluations will be based on "student achievement", and 2) the possibility, mentioned by someone else on InsideEd, that this could lead to a competitive atmosphere among teachers instead of free and open sharing & collaboration.
The comment about summer stuff is a good one -- I hadn't thought of that / had assumed it would. I assume a lot of what you might have to demonstrate is what someone might have had to demonstrate in the National Board process, which makes sense.
Deliberately left vague? That's disquieting, as I was expecting more direction once the contract was ratified.
We'll see.
Deliberately left vague in the sense that the committee would develop it as the year went along (not necessarily that they wouldn't provide examples or further criteria, just not yet, so it's left out of the contract).
You did National Board last year, right? What sort of demonstrations / evidence did you compile or create?
There are 4 big sections of National Board (it's just starting up for this year, too, I don't think it's too late to get involved - I'm mentoring candidates), and all deal with demonstrations of evidence of your teaching.
The first section is demonstrated student learning. For English, we had to demonstrate, with student work samples, our skills as a reading teacher and a writing teacher.
The second section is large group instruction, which you videotape (just 15 minutes worth) and write about how it demonstrates the NBPTS teaching standards (as well as your reflections about how to make it better).
The third section is similar, but for a whole class.
The fourth section is about demonstrating your contributions to the greater school community in regards to student learning. It's lots of documentation (from letters from parents/colleagues to student narratives to proof of going to conferences) but the key is always how it directly affected student learning. For example, I wrote up baseball coaching, but used evidence of higher performance in class as well as narratives from a couple players about how I use sports as a tool for classroom achievement.
It's a cool process and I definitely recommend it. I don't know if I get it until November, though.
I still haven't seen anything about how they intend to pay for all of this. It seems like a lot of potential fluctuation from year to year in the budget. How are they planning to keep this new contract afloat financially?
Increased funding from Race for the Top funding and, principals will just have to budget this into their budgets - that's what we've been told.
The total cost over the current contract is apparently not very much (relatively speaking) - less than $60 million over the course of three years.
Hmm. The Race to the Top money is finite, and where would Principals cut in order to fund these raises long-term? Fewer teachers/larger class sizes? Cutting from the arts? Cutting the sports budget? Seriously, where else is there discretionary funding?
After watching the California school system fall into ruin over an unfunded good idea (mandatory class caps), the "how will this be paid for" question is paramount.
It concerns me that the budgeting plan for this is "we're going implement this long-term plan because we have this short-term pile of cash."
On an unrelated note--Congrats on the soon-to-be-betrothed sibling!
I'm sure I've already asked, but are you going to NCTE this year?
Really good exchange, I really like open nature of the comments.
Remember that DC is paying for their Merit Pay with Corporate Donations-- over 1/3 of which are Walton Family (of Walmart Fame) In return, these corporate donors can pull the donation if they don't like Michelle Rhee's successor.
I really like the evaluation system because it does not seem punitive. But I don't like the idea that we may have to panhandle in front of Walmart in order to afford it. There is already too much corporate influence over school policy.
Aside from the quicker way to go up the salary scale, I don't really understand what you like about it, since everything else has been left undefined. And I don't like the fact that we are being asked to vote without time for thorough discussion and analysis. It's undemocratic and patronizing.
Thanks for posting this. I like the contract, too. Not perfect but it takes us in the right direction. Does anyone really think the system we've been using is a good one?
If you're reading this today, please go vote. Poly High School, 12pm-3pm. I hear you can register on site, if you're not already a BTU member.
I hope we all vote yes, but regardless of how you're voting, a big turnout is important. Everyone should be at the table on this one.
Robin: I guess what is key is that I think the current system is pretty unfair and crummy. I see a chance to get paid for doing a good job, and to do have a little bit of a say in what I make. That, I think, is great.
What I like about it is that even a mediocre teacher gets 9 AUs a year for a Satisfactory evaluation, and he or she could take a class and get that up to 12 AUs if they feel like they're being screwed over or want the bump in salary. I also believe that other AUs will be able to be earned with going to conferences and stuff like that; even though they aren't defined totally, that example has been given enough so it will be an AU possibility.
Also, "Aside from the quicker way to go up the salary scale" -- that's quite a lot for me. I think teachers should have more control over how much they make; that's a big deal to me.
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