>
> David> On Feb 14, 2005, at 7:33 AM, Michael Atherton wrote:
> >> a) Nothing has been done about the problem of there
> >> being a disproportionate number of inexperienced teachers
> >> in minority schools. A problem that everyone acknowledges
> >> is a contributing factor to the poor performance of
> >> minority students.
>
> David> I agree with this. It would be good to see a district
> David> official and/or School Board member tell the list what's up
> David> with this.
>
> The obvious question is: how do we fix this problem without destroying
> the successful functioning of schools that have teams that have worked
> together well for years?
>
> I'm all for seeing this problem addressed, but I'm worried that the
> obvious "solution" will be a ham-fisted scattering of the existing
> body of experienced teachers across the whole system. That would just
> create a system-side disfunction in place of a localized one. I've
> worked with the government (and large businesses) long enough to know
> that easy solutions to fairness issues often involve leveling down,
> instead of leveling up. Leveling down just leaves everybody worse
> off. Remember, if you're inclined to be ok with leveling down, that
> you can easily just move your accomplishment gap into a public
> school/private school gap, and THAT one is a heck of a lot less
> amenable of solution, since you aren't going to be able to level up OR
> down across that one, and it's likely to rip away a big hunk of the
> tax base needed to do any improvements to the MPS.
>
> So....
>
> Is there any way to use incentives to get more experienced teachers to
> want to choose some of these schools?'
It's probably going to take more than just money to get teachers to want
to move to the toughest schools. After 18 years in the business world where
a lot of what I did had to do with compensation incentives for sales people
and strategies for structuring sales organizations, I can tell you that the
incentives that work in the business world aren't going to work the same way
in schools. Money and power are not high on the list of motivators for
teachers and all the others that work in schools. Teachers want to be
successful teachers and part of a successful team of teachers and parents in
a supportive community. Most teachers are not entrepenuers in the way that
entrepenuers operate in the business world. There are plenty of skills that
can be transfered (I've found that AT&T V.P. scams aren't all that different
from 3rd grade playground issues.) Good teaching, necessarily has a much
longer 'sales cycle.' It's a multi-year process and is dependent on the
efforts of many besides just the classroom teacher, which is why the pay for
performance schemes that are modeled after business incentives don't work
well.
One idea that I've heard is for the district to incent a whole team of
successful teachers from one school to move to a school that is struggling.
It won't be cheap, but educating our children on the cheap is not what most
people want anyway. The problem is finding not only the money but the
experience to put a turn around team in place.
One of the big obstacles to change that is not often mentioned, and it
is true that there are teachers who don't want to upset the applecart, is
that the current system is supported by a large portion of building and
district adminstrators, who also don't want to see much change.
I whole heartedly agree that we need to do something. I t isn't good for
anyone to put rookies in the toughest "territories / accounts" I wouldn't
have done that when I was sales manager, I and don't think it makes sense
now in our schools.
Dan McGuire
Ericsson
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