----- Original Message -----
From: Name Deleted
To: Ron@QualitySchoolsNow.org
Sent: Monday,
February 18, 2002 11:47 AM
Subject: RE: Lake Fenton
Hall of Shame
After
reading some of the letters sent to the errors-of-fact, it
appears none actually dispute you
on the facts and that the respondents in this category
are just attacking you personally for bringing the facts to
light. It seems everyone in the country recognizes
public schools don't do a great job, yet teachers unions
resist any genuine attempts at reform.
As
to the "high-performing teacher" in that
column,
he's right, he doesn't get 3
months off. Assuming the school year is 180 days as it is
in New Jersey, that means he has 16 weeks, or closer to 4
months off (teachers like to perpetuate that 3 month myth),
and when he does work, it's a 6 hour day, with about 3-4
hours actual instruction time. He complains he
makes $36,000/year and takes a summer job, but ignores that
the rest of us don't take a second job because we are
working at our regular FULL TIME, FULL YEAR job. And
he thinks we all drive company cars, get bonuses, have
expense accounts, and go home at 5:00pm. Well, we don't.
We also don't get tenure, have a guaranteed pension, get
automatic salary increases for getting a post-grad degree,
or claim to be professionals yet belong to a union. We
can be let go with no notice, without regard to seniority,
or any of the protections schoolteachers enjoy. If he
is such a "high-performer",
I suggest he support vouchers and charter schools without
the limitations of union teachers so that he can be
recognized and individually rewarded if his performance
actually merits it, like all of us outside education.
I suspect
otherwise.
Good
luck in your legal dispute with L.
Hatfield, Mr. Riley.
Please remove my
email address as with the others.
The
legal dispute was dismissed. Lori
Hatfield lost
on all counts.
All very
good points. Thank you for his thought
provoking letter.
It is a
shame that Lake Fenton's school board is not up to the
same, in that they deem it unnecessary to even respond to
those parents who write them. When finally forced to
respond by media knocking at his door all the President of
school board John
Sharpe could think of to talk about was how
"slanderous" the use of this web site to
encourage them to interact with the public is.
I have had jobs
where I received some of the perks he talks about. With
every one of them the bulk of my pay was based on performance.
Perhaps the
answer to boring, lazy, uppity, and indifferent teachers is to
base half their pay on a number of performance
factors. Base the pay on a combination the class's
collective progress and on parent ratings of the teacher.
The evaluation
of the teacher would be done by a separate entity, with the
teacher only given a report of the results and how those
results impacted their pay. And perhaps specific
suggestions as to how they can improve their performance the
next year based on parent feedback and class
performance.
Maybe even
allow the children to have a small say in pay, say 10%, based
on how interesting the teacher made the subject to the
children.
Ronald J. Riley
