Nellie Shay
♦Senator Thom Goolsby’s article in the September 12th issue of RFP is promoting a year-to-year contract system for teachers based on job performance. That sounds good until you ask who evaluates a teacher’s performance. Will the evaluators be the same administration who assigns which students a teacher will work with? This practice is risking the development of a buddy system in which the best students may be assigned to the favored, who may then be guaranteed to rate highly based on uniform testing.
How do you measure accomplishment in teaching? Where is the system able to recognize the teacher who is assigned struggling students and gives time both during the school day and after hours to spark a desire to learn in those students? There is no benchmark for ability to inspire. Under this system, a teacher who needs that paycheck may want the self-starters and might avoid those who need effort beyond the class parameters or regular school hours.
Regarding the implication that teachers work “only” ten months of the year: most teachers put in more hours in those then months than the rest of us do in a year. Anyone who has said “good night” to a teacher still facing a pile of papers on the kitchen table waiting to be graded knows this to be true.
