Dear Senator Luann Ridgeway,...

Dear Senator Luann Ridgeway,

Thank you for your response email regarding SB372, I know you are very busy and I appreciate your time and your response asking for suggestions to address the issues that we are currently facing in education.

After rereading your response letter I feel that there are some discrepancies between your response and SB372 and I am hoping that after reading my response that maybe you will understand a little more about the parts of SB372 that I oppose and other issues in education that are not directly linked to the bill.

As mentioned in your response, I agree with looking at reforms that will make education more effective, efficient and improve student achievement. The area of reform that I am concerned about is teacher tenure and merit pay. Teacher tenure improves the relationships between teachers and supports fair and equal treatment of teachers. Tenure recognizes teachers for staying in a particular school district or grade, and is commiserating with ‘years of experience’ as referenced by other professions. As an Elementary teacher I am constantly collaborating with teachers on ideas to implement within my own classroom to improve student achievement. As a tenured teacher I also provide guidance and support for new teachers.

Unfortunately, there are teachers within our educational system who are not the best, but there are procedures in place to get them out of schools. If an administrator or district wants to terminate a tenured teacher, there is an established process for this and it can be done. As with other professions, it is a matter of following the process and documentation. I am not against changing this process to make it more timely and standard; however, this does not require elimination of tenure. There should also be a process in place whereby teachers can report poorly performing principals or administrators without the fear or repercussions. Currently, this is not possible. While administrators are not affected by SB372, I feel this is something that should be addressed in reform efforts.

As for the section within SB372 regarding merit pay for educators, I am for merit pay but not as stated in SB372. SB372 suggests having teachers in three tiers within each school. This means 33% of the teachers would make the top pay over the other tiers while last tier would make not even enough to support a family. Being a teacher is a good middle class job. No one is getting rich teaching. Teachers, like others, have mortgage payments, student loans, as well as other financial obligations. Teachers are responsible for the education of our country’s youth and deserve to be paid accordingly. I feel that it is unfair to have teachers at a poverty level salary. We want to attract the right teachers, and make education better for the children in the state of Missouri not hinder it. Having teachers compete for merit pay is not the answer, particularly as it is difficult to assess each teacher individually based upon the demographics of the class.

I have a student I want to tell you about. This first grader has been struggling with basic reading. I have tried many different strategies to help this learner. I finally found an intervention that worked for this student and the light bulb has clicked on! How rewarding that is to see! Strategies tried previously by other teachers had not worked for this student. Now if SB372 passed as currently written, what incentive does that give me to share this strategy with other teachers? SB372’s not about helping all children succeed… it's about competing amongst peers for top tier salary. It would have a profound effect on teaching philosophy. It takes a village to raise a child, as Hilary Clinton said a few years ago. It’s not about individual performance.

Another story I can share is from a couple of years ago. Due to turnover within the school, we had a couple of newer teachers assigned to teach the same grade as myself. Since I was the more experienced teacher, when children were assigned to classrooms I was given more of the ‘difficult’ or ‘challenged’ children. This is just an example of how the distribution of students is not always equal in assessing teacher performance. So, if SB372 passes with no clear plan for evaluation this would be chaos. There are so many factors to be considered and applied fairly across the board. In your response, you shared your concern about administrators and concerns of other educators. Would the state spend even more money hiring someone to be trained to assess the teachers? What would be the criteria for how this would look like? I would suggest looking at the methodology used for merit pay from a school district in Chicago. Teachers are given their base salary. Teachers are then graded on attendance, parent participation surveys, professional growth and development efforts, the amount of extra time they spend tutoring, etc., and on individual student growth based on the entry level of the student’s performance. They are not graded solely off standardized testing, which as we both know, is not administered by all teachers and again vary by the student demographics. Teachers in this Chicago school system are given the opportunity to make more money than their base pay by earning it.

America's schools are behind academically compared to other countries, declining steadily since the 1970's. It is important to remain in the rankings with other countries such as China, India and Germany. The difference between education in our country compared to other countries is America’s love for standardized testing. Every year, our students spend a huge chunk of their school years preparing for standardized government tests, not because it contributes to the education but rather it’s necessary to maintain school funding. If teachers are busy preparing for an annual test, this decreases their time to work on higher level, independent, and critical thinking skills.

In America, teachers are expected to address and tolerate social problems. Yet, in other high performing countries they have a zero tolerance for disobedience in school. I would like to see more efforts made to support teachers in dealing with the various socioeconomic situations. America provides public education to all children while in other high performing countries children from wealthy or connected families are given the opportunity to go to school for an education. The other children often learn a trade instead of a basic education. To continue to be able to provide education for all, teachers need support systems. I agree that teachers should be accountable; however something needs to be done about parent accountability as well. In schools where the students come from poverty levels, many of the parents are absent, do not value education, or do not have the education themselves to help their children by reinforcing skills at home. This year, I had a student come to my class who was performing two grade levels below his current grade level. We have spent most of the year, including many hours outside of the classroom, trying to help him catch up. The student has made progress, but is still not up to grade level after seven months. I have recommended he be retained in this grade for another year so that he could catch up and have a successful educational experience. This child's parent refuses retention and as part of NCLB he has that right. So now this child will go on to the next grade to be even further behind! We need to look at this closer as it is not working! We do not tell carpenters how to build things or pilots how to fly planes, yet parents tell teachers how to do their jobs. Why is it fair that teachers are held responsible for children's education when their parents don't value it?

Being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs in the world. You can't really understand it unless you eat, sleep, breathe, and live it. Children are our future. We all know this, we all agree on this. It's been the saying decade upon decade. I appreciate the efforts you are making to help our children. It takes a small village to raise a child; it will continue to take a collaborative effort by the community, the teachers, the parents to help our children in Missouri succeed. Please consider voting NO to SB372 as it is not what is best for anyone. I encourage you to look into some successful things happening in other states and considering proposing new legislation that better meets the educational needs of Missouri children.

Thanks,

Andi


(On a sidenote, blog peeps-- If you would like to write a senator in your area and voice your concerns about SB372 visit MissouriNEA and there will be a prewritten letter...All you have to do is sign and send it via email or feel free to write something yourself. Thanks for your support.)