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9486 in the collection
HISD hopes new version of bonus plan will quiet critics
Ohanian Comment: Doesn't it just figure that the Broad Foundation is behind this incentive pay outrage? One more nail in the coffin of teacher professionalism.
Now where did this assertion come from? Incentive pay is a strategy used by the business world for decades. There it is stated as a universal fact, as though it were the 11th Commandment. Or maybe on the 8th day God created Incentive Pay.
Ask anyone who has worked in the business world how true this is. I have personal experience. Six months after receiving the highest performance evaluation ever given at Springhouse Corporation, I was forced out. Of course this is only anecdotal but I worked for other corporations and have more stories. Anybody who has worked in "the business world" has similar stories.
Worse is the Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra's statement: "Human nature is that money motivates people. ... It motivates teachers."
A point of information: Before becoming the Broad Foundation associate director, Eli Kennedy was the Western regional director for Platform Learning, a New York-based tutoring company. Apparently following the dictum that people are motivated by money, Platform representatives approached several principals with an offer to pay each of their schools $5,000 if they enrolled 150 or more students in Platform's program. In June 2006, Platform Learning filed for Chapter 11. It had raised over $20M in VC funding since its 2003 inception, from Ascend Venture Group, Capital Resource Partners, New York City Investment Fund, Quad Ventures and AlpInvest Partners. The latest item in the "In the News" section of its website is Sept. 14, 2005. Check on "Careers" and you get this message: Please check back at a later date for available part-time seasonal positions at Platform Learning.
One could wish that the union would stand up against this demeaning and harmful scheme. One could wish. . . .
By Jennifer Radcliffe
Houston school officials are hoping the new version of their controversial incentive pay plan will win greater support from teachers, although those who still object to the program will have a chance to opt out.
Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra said Thursday that he expects no more than a handful of "conscientious objectors" to forgo a chance to earn up to $7,300 in bonuses this year. That's $1,300 more than the maximum payout for most teachers last year.
The new proposal, which will go before the Houston Independent School District board next week, shifts emphasis from the performance of individual classes to the performance of campuses and departments.
"I'm hoping teachers find the plan friendlier and fairer," said Lisa Auerbach, a Herod Elementary third-grade teacher.
Auerbach served on an advisory panel created after last year's $15 million payout received a poor reception from a vocal group of the district's nearly 13,000 teachers.
Part of HISD's second effort on performance pay will be footed by the Broad Foundation, billionaire businessman Eli Broad's Los Angeles-based organization. The foundation announced a $3.6 million grant Thursday that will pay for training, data management and Web site development for the bonuses — dubbed ASPIRE Awards — which advocates say will be central to attracting and retaining top teachers.
Incentive pay is a strategy used by the business world for decades.
"We believe the time has come to extend this concept to the most important profession in the nation: teaching," said Eli Kennedy, the foundation's associate director.
Rough start
About a dozen states, including Texas, Florida and New York, have some type of incentive pay program, as do a few U.S. school districts, including Aldine in north Harris County.
Houston's program, however, is one of the largest and most ambitious in the country, and being among the first wave of urban districts to adopt the reform hasn't been easy.
Hundreds of teachers earlier this year called the initial formula confusing and unfair. The district took even more grief when it asked 99 employees to return about $73,700 that it said was paid out by mistake.
"We stumbled a lot," Saavedra said. "The sign of a good, strong school district is getting yourself back up."
Despite the rocky start, Saavedra credits HISD's evolving incentive pay program with helping hike students' results.
"While I'm not prepared to tie it completely to performance pay, I do think performance pay plays a role in motivation," he said. "Human nature is that money motivates people. ... It motivates teachers."
About 8,000 employees received incentives last year, with the average check totaling $1,847. Most teachers were eligible for up to $6,000, but fifth-grade science teachers were eligible for up to $7,000.
The next round of checks is expected to go out in January. Educators hope HISD does a better job this year of explaining the complicated formula used to calculate the payouts.
"We were blindsided," said Ferryn Martin, a U.S. history teacher at Austin High School. "I felt victimized by it."
While last year's system pitted teachers against one another, Martin expects these changes to help foster teamwork at HISD's 300 campuses. This draft eliminates classroom incentives at the high school level, where teachers will be awarded bonuses based on the performance of their entire departments.
"We sink or swim together," Martin said.
The money will be distributed on the basis of campuswide improvement, individual teacher performance and comparative campus improvement.
Teachers can earn up to $5,000, for example, if their students outperform students in 75 percent of HISD schools at the same academic level. Teachers could earn $1,000 more if their schools are in the top 25 percent of the TAKS test results statewide in reading and math.
Teachers at schools receiving the state's top rating, exemplary, would receive $300 bonuses. Teachers at recognized schools would earn $150.
Equitable approach?
HISD officials said they've gone to great lengths to find formulas that are fair for all teachers. One major element of this plan, for example, looks at performance gains over three years.
"Just because it's complicated doesn't mean it's smoke and mirrors," board member Dianne Johnson said.
Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, still isn't sold.
"Anything would be an improvement. It's one of the few programs they had that couldn't get worse," she said. "But it's still got the same flaws. It's still very complicated and still, as a teacher, I can't sit there with this plan and tell you how much I'm supposed to improve."
The plan still puts too much emphasis on test scores and doesn't fully reward those who teach non-core subjects, she said. But Fallon said she doubts many teachers will opt out.
— Jennifer Radcliffe
Houston Chronicle
2007-09-07
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5112491.html
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
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