A Newark Teacher Speaks
I received an email from a teacher in Newark today. It was so well-written and so powerful that I asked for permission to share it.
I'm omitting the first paragraph, as it details this teacher's particular salary situation. Suffice to say the teacher, with more than ten years of experience, will take a significant hit on pay - and that's not even counting the new state-mandated contributions to benefits, which will quadruple over four years.
None of the teachers I know are happy with this. It has been the consensus that we would all vote NO. Having peer evaluators has the potential advantage of us having empathetic people helping to decide how "effective" we are. The more likely scenario, however, will be that they pay retired teachers to do this ("When I was in the classroom, I had 40 kids in there...") , and drain the Zuckerberg money in those consultant fees.
I'm omitting the first paragraph, as it details this teacher's particular salary situation. Suffice to say the teacher, with more than ten years of experience, will take a significant hit on pay - and that's not even counting the new state-mandated contributions to benefits, which will quadruple over four years.
None of the teachers I know are happy with this. It has been the consensus that we would all vote NO. Having peer evaluators has the potential advantage of us having empathetic people helping to decide how "effective" we are. The more likely scenario, however, will be that they pay retired teachers to do this ("When I was in the classroom, I had 40 kids in there...") , and drain the Zuckerberg money in those consultant fees.
