North Carolina and an Insane Teacher Pay Scheme
North Carolina and an Insane Teacher Pay Scheme
A merit pay plan that enriches everyone BUT the teachers of North Carolina
I’ve previously highlighted a developing scheme in North Carolina to move teachers there to a merit pay plan - one that keeps pay relatively low and is NOT supported by actual educators. One that also does nothing to actually address the current teacher shortage in the state.
Education blogger (and educator) Peter Greene offers more insight into what’s happening in North Carolina - including how value-added assessment plays a role.
Greene notes:
North Carolina is considering a radical revamp of its teacher pay system, a framework that ties teacher pay to measures of merit, instead of years of experience. It is a bad plan, for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which is that no teacher merit pay plan has ever proven to be a definitive success.
This plan lowers the bar for entering the profession, while creating a ladder to higher levels of certification and higher levels of pay tied to “educational outcomes,”. Meaning, a system in which a teacher’s livelihood is tied to student test scores and a teacher training is centered on preparing students for a single high stakes test.
Here’s how North Carolina Policy Watch describes the proposed pay plan:
A new compensation and licensure proposal that rewards “competency and skill” has some state teachers worried that “classroom experience would no longer be valued in North Carolina,” State Board of Education member Jill Camnitz said Wednesday.
The proposal establishes a pay range largely based on teacher effectiveness and responsibilities. An apprentice teacher, for example, would earn $30,000 annually; beginning teachers with degrees from one of the 55 state-approved Educator Preparation Programs would earn $45,000. That’s about $10,000 more than first-year teachers are currently paid.
Greene explains that the effort to undermine public education goes back to the establishment of GOP dominance in the state’s legislature:
The roots go back over a decade. North Carolina had been a leading state for public education, but in 2010 the GOP established a super-majority in the legislature. What followed was a steady dismantling of public education in the state, combined with steps backward for the teaching profession.
Greene adds that the teacher pay scheme is just the latest in a series of efforts to privatize North Carolina’s public schools:
Funding levels of public schools dropped, and the legislature has dragged its feet on implementing a court-ordered funding equity plan. At the same time, they have provided great opportunities for charter school profiteers.
Similar efforts to privatize are underway in neighboring Tennessee:
Here’s how Greene summarizes the current NC climate:
But right now, North Carolina is getting ready to implement a shaky system unsupported by research and pushed forward by a group with no official government mandate, power, or responsibility, funneled through a legislature-empowered commission for which it appears others pulled the strings.
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