--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Let me take an educated guess about what was at > issue in the move to > decertify the MTA at a magnet school in Michigan. > Could it be pay for > performance and tenure rights?
Here is the story, the link to the actual article is stale otherwise I'd link to it. Monday, October 29, 2001 MIDLAND� "The teachers of Island City Academy, a charter school in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, voted today to oust the Michigan Education Association (MEA) as their collective bargaining agent." "Prior to the Island City Academy vote, a majority of teachers publicly complained in a petition to the Board of Education that �the union is seeking to protect its own agenda and . . . is causing the district to spend precious resources of time and money that could be used to improve the compensation of teachers or to better meet the classroom instruction needs of students.� "Today�s vote clears the way for teachers to negotiate wages and other work issues directly with school managers." Nothing about performance pay or tenure, and we are left to speculate as to what the teachers didn't like about the MEA's agenda. What ever the reason, this school bears watching. > The truth is that the district may fire tenured > teachers for a lot of things, > including poor job performance. The teacher tenure > act, which is > incorporated into the teachers contract, merely > requires the district to > produce evidence of poor job performance, and that > it has made a reasonable > effort to identify and correct the problems with a > particular teacher.> I would be very, very interested in seeing an accounting of just how many teachers have actually been fired for any reason from the Mpls. school district. > What's wrong with pay for performance? A teacher's > performance has a lot to > do with a number of factors beyond the teacher's > control.> This is an excellent example of the type of smoke screen I mentioned earlier. A competent administrator would know these factors and just how much of an effect they have on an individual teacher. A good one would weigh them favorably in the teachers favor. Personally, I think a lot of these "factors" have to do with outrageous behavior on the part of some students, and their parents refusal to deal with them. Giving teachers more authority over what happens in their classrooms, including who stays and who goes would make a lot of these "factors" go away. > The link between > pay and performance really gave administrators a lot > of leeway to determine > how much to increase a teacher's salary.> Of course! That's the point; but of course that just won't be allowed to stand in a union environment. This is where I'll stake my speculation as to where the teachers at Island City Academy parted ways with their union. > Many > teacher believed that the > process was unfair. The teachers that did the most > kissing up seemed to get > the best job evaluations. Well if that's the case, perhaps it would be benificial for our public school administrators to forgo their next diversity training retreat and attend a lecture series by Jack Welch. Any school in which this type of performance measurement is used would sink to the bottom if it were measured in a more competitive system. In any case, this type of petty conflict, whether based on fact or hurt feelings cannot be allowed to continue. In light of the disaster that is occuring in the metro schools, I'd be ashamed to admit it's a issue. Thomas Swift Saint Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals http://personals.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
