Organizations and Individuals Rise Up to Support Fair Share, Tell Court to Uphold 'Abood' - NEA Today

Organizations and Individuals Rise Up to Support Fair Share, Tell Court to Uphold 'Abood' - NEA Today:

Organizations and Individuals Rise Up to Support Fair Share, Tell Court to Uphold ‘Abood’

Hundreds of groups and individuals—representing all levels of government and civil rights organizations, and including public officials, academic experts, and others—have filed 24 briefs amici curiae (“friends of the court”) with the U.S. Supreme Court in the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case. The briefs, like the one filed by more than 70 national civil rights organizations, urge the Court to uphold the fair share fees that support strong collective bargaining, rather than “undermine” the strong bargaining relationships that have provided “a critical path to the middle class for generations of working people.” The Court first upheld such fees in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education in 1977, and has repeatedly reaffirmed the validity of such fees unanimously, including in an opinion just six years ago.

“The number and vast range of groups who have spoken up by filing amici briefs with the Court illustrate how important this case is and what’s at stake for America’s working families,” said National Education President Lily Eskelsen García. “States as different as Alaska and New York, with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, see how this case harms not just public workers but also the communities who depend on the services they provide.”

Earlier this month, NEA joined with the California Teachers Association and a number of unions to file the union respondents’ brief, which laid out why the fair share rule first adopted in Abood remains sound and should be reaffirmed. The state of California also filed in support of Abood, explaining that it relies on fair share fees to effectively manage its substantial public workforce and ensure the efficient delivery of quality public services.

This past Friday, hundreds of amici weighed in with dozens of briefs. Twenty-one states, dozens of cities, nearly 50 Republican lawmakers, school districts and public hospitals rose in support of the value fair share fees provide in terms of the effective management of public services.

States including Alaska, Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia, joined by the District of Columbia, as well as Montana Governor Steve Bullock, who filed his own brief, have all weighed in to voice their common view that Abood rightly recognized “that States have a significant and valid interest in being able to employ the models of collective bargaining that have proved successful for achieving labor peace and avoiding labor strikes,” and for improving the efficiency and quality of public services. Thousands of contracts that include such fees cover millions of public employees.

Almost 50 Republican state officials have filed to urge that the Court reaffirm Aboodand leave “the complicated calculus involved in determining how to structure public sector labor relations,” to the state and local leaders “best positioned” to decide such matters. As the brief of the U.S. government points out, the petitioners’ request that the Court constitutionalize public-sector labor relations decisions long made by states in accordance with their local circumstances “would astonish the founding generation and would stamp out the state-by-state variation in public employment structures that has been the hallmark of this Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence for decades.”

SEE ALSO:

Friedrichs Is Missing Its Warning Label

Several of the amici explained the benefits that states have reaped in choosing collective bargaining supported by fair share fees. New York City filed a separate brief explaining why fair share fees have been essential to securing labor peace and the uninterrupted delivery of public services on which its millions of residents depend.

School districts secure more effective collective bargaining relationships with unions that have “the stability to make difficult agreements that may be unpopular but are in the long-term interests of employees, students and the entire community.” Other municipalities gain “significant efficiency benefits…by working with the stable union partners that agency-fee arrangements make possible.” And public hospital systems that serve millions have benefitted from the strong labor management partnerships that fees make possible, which have served to substantially improve the health care they provide.

Leading experts from across the country have also filed in the case, explaining that the Court should decline petitioners’ invitation to cast Abood aside based on politics, rather than principles, and should continue to allow states to decide for themselves how best to manage their workforces in order to provide critical government services like public schools. And leading national economists have filed to explain that the free-rider phenomena, which fair share fees are necessary to counter, is real and significantly decrease union effectiveness if left unchecked.

NEA and CTA have joined other unions and organizations in a broad-based coalition,America Works Together, to raise public awareness and to ensure the public and Supreme Court know that current law established by Abood has formed the foundation for people to work together for more responsive public services—such as better outcomes in the classroom for our kids, quicker response times in emergencies, and better staffing for hospitals..

“This case will do nothing to help our students,” said CTA President Eric C. Heins. “What this case is really about is making it harder for working people to stand together and fight for our students, our schools and our future.”

Image: America Works Together Organizations and Individuals Rise Up to Support Fair Share, Tell Court to Uphold 'Abood' - NEA Today:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dorn Asks AG Ferguson for an Opinion on Local Levies

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dorn Asks AG Ferguson for an Opinion on Local Levies:

Dorn Asks AG Ferguson for an Opinion on Local Levies

State Superintendent Randy Dorn's letter to Attorney General Bob Ferguson. The letter is much more in the weeds than the press release below. Dorn ends the letter saying (partial):

In the meantime, many school districts have already begun the process of planning future levies.

Without clarity on this question, school districts cannot adequately plan how they intend to deliver - or pay for - basic education services.

Given the longstanding - and ongoing - legal uncertainly regarding school districts' authority to use local levy funding to pay district personnel for basic education services, I believe it is essential that your response to this request be expedited.


Press Release

Nearly 40 years ago, the state Supreme Court ruled that the state’s education funding system relied too much on local levies. That reliance, the Court said, was unconstitutional. 
Nearly four years ago, the Court reaffirmed that opinion in McCleary v. Washington. 

And yet, since then, I’ve heard few ideas about reforming the levy system. 

With that in mind, I’ve asked Attorney General Bob Ferguson today to issue a formal opinion answering the following question: 

Do school district board members have the authority to use local levies to pay compensation to district employees for basic education services? 

The fact is that, every year, school districts levy local taxpayers to pay for administrative, support staff, and teacher salaries. To give one example: In Bethel the state pays an average of $60,000 for each administrative staff. But the district pays an average of $111,600. 

Where does the $51,600 difference come from? Local levies. 

The problem isn’t just with administrators. For certificated staff, the difference Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dorn Asks AG Ferguson for an Opinion on Local Levies:

Dedicated teachers can’t provide the whole answer, says Newark’s mayor - The Hechinger Report

Dedicated teachers can’t provide the whole answer, says Newark’s mayor - The Hechinger Report:

Dedicated teachers can’t provide the whole answer, says Newark’s mayor

It takes a lot more to disentangle a child from poverty’s barriers

As  Newark, New Jersey begins to celebrate the 350^thanniversary of its founding as a community, our schools remain vital to the progress of our city. There is nothing more important to the future of our city than the development and education of our youngest residents, the children of Newark. We have an obligation to provide all of our children, not just a few, with the resources they need to achieve in school and succeed in life.

In the 21^st century, meeting every child where they are requires a comprehensive strategy that addresses their social and health needs, embraces the cultural diversity they bring to school, ensures they have the opportunities they deserve, and supports school leaders and staff, all while engaging our children in critical thinking and learning.

Galvanizing the assets in Newark to work in the interests of our children, our families, our neighborhoods and our schools is not merely a political or economic issue…this is a moral issue for our administration and the people and institutions in the City of Newark

Across the nation, 20 percent of all children live below the poverty line. An unfathomable 44 percent of Newark’s children are growing up in poverty. This translates into food insecurity, unstable and unhealthy living conditions, environmental toxins and untreated medical conditions like toxic stress, toothaches, and ear infections. The research is clear; while poverty is the single greatest threat to children’s well-being, we can disrupt its harmful effects on our children and schools. It is our responsibility to do so.

Creating successful schools is not a mystical process. It is grounded in research on best practices and is based on empirical data. Quitman Street School in Newark is an example of how aligning school improvement efforts with investments in health, social services, student supports, and community engagement equip schools with the level of school and community capacity required for success. All schools have challenges. Quitman Street School is no exception. However, Quitman’s steady progress toward transformation is linked to its strategic focus on weaving together resources from inside and outside the school and use those resources to build school a responsive culture, integrate student supports, and drive a focus on learning. In the spring of 2014, the school, led by Principal Erskine Glover, saw the highest reading gains in Dedicated teachers can’t provide the whole answer, says Newark’s mayor - The Hechinger Report:

UOO Webinar Series: What does the Education Revolution look like? - UNITED OPT OUT

UOO Webinar Series: What does the Education Revolution look like? - UNITED OPT OUT: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform:

UOO Webinar Series: What does the Education Revolution look like?

Announcing: UNITED OPT OUT Webinar Series

What: United Opt Out National is hosting a series of webinars that engage participants in discussions around the key question: WHAT DOES THE EDUCATION REVOLUTION LOOK LIKE?

Grounded in our belief that this is the People’s Movement, fueled by grassroots action and organizing, we will be focusing each webinar on chapters from our book, An Activist Handbook for the Education Revolution,  and we will share how each of us can take local or national actions. Webinar participants will have an opportunity to ask questions and contribute to the conversation.

Each chapter in our book includes questions and suggestions for actions related to the corresponding chapter topics. Those questions and suggestions are the guiding outline for our webinars. You do not need to have read the book in order to participate in the webinars! Bring your questions and your experience and your suggestions to the conversation!

How to sign up?

Email us at unitedoptoutnational@gmail.com and we will add your email to the list for the webinar(s) – you can list all the webinars you wish to attend in ONE email. Please know if you choose to join us via phone (cell or landline) and do not have unlimited minutes charges may apply to your personal phone account. Cell phones with unlimited minutes and or via computer webinar app is free! We will send directions to your email! Donations to UOO to support our conference are appreciated. 

Webinar #1
November 8th, Sunday, 5 pm EST
Channeling Political and Moral Outrage
Webinar Kick Off with guest Ricardo Rosa (author of book’s Forward) and Rosemarie Jensen.

Webinar #2
November 17th, Tuesday, 9 pm EST
Predators, Colonizers, and Corporate-Model Reform: This webinar will discuss the nuts and bolts of the history of, and key players behind, the privatization of public education.  The latest soon-to-be published research about the REAL origins of common core will be revealed! Be the first to hear it here at United Opt Out. Led by Morna McDermott and Denisha Jones.

Webinar #3
December 6th, Sunday, 7 pm EST
Who We Are:  This webinar discusses the history of United Opt Out and examines the question “What does it take to grow a national movement?” Led by Morna McDermott, Peggy Robertson, and Michael Pena.

Webinar #4
January 10th, Sunday, 7 pm EST
Changing the Narrative: This webinar discusses the issues of equity and racism. How has the narrative for social justice been hijacked? And how can we reclaim our power? Led by Ceresta Smith, Denisha Jones, and Michael Pena.

Webinar #5
January 26th, Tuesday, 9 pm EST
The Inconvenient Truth about Reform: This webinar examines a case study in Massachusetts and how MA activists fought back. Led by Ruth Rodriguez and Gus Morales.

Webinar #6
February 7th, Sunday, 7 pm EST
Strategizing 101: This webinar focuses on the details involved in developing and implementing strategies such as messaging, defining purpose and mission, and evaluating impact. Led by  Peggy Robertson, Tim Slekar, and Rosemarie Jensen.

Webinar #7
February 23rd, Tuesday, 9 pm EST
Where Do We Go From Here? This webinar focuses on the future of the Opt Out movement. Who are we? What are we fighting for? How do we obtain ALL for ALL children? How will we get there? Led by Tim Slekar, Peggy Robertson, and Ceresta Smith

 UOO Webinar Series: What does the Education Revolution look like? - UNITED OPT OUT: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform:

CURMUDGUCATION: Accelerated Reader's Ridiculous Research

CURMUDGUCATION: Accelerated Reader's Ridiculous Research:

Accelerated Reader's Ridiculous Research

If you are not familiar with Renaissance Learning and their flagship product, Accelerated Reader, count yourself lucky.

Accelerated Reading bills itself as a reading program, but it would be more accurate a huge library of reading quizzes, with a reading level assessment component thrown in. That's it. It doesn't teach children how to read; it just puts them in a computerized Skinner box that feeds them points instead of pellets for performing some simple tasks repeatedly.

Pick a book (but only one on the approved AR list). Read it. As soon as you've read it, you can take the computer quiz and earn points. AR is a great demonstration of the Law of Unintended Consequences as well as Campbell's Law, because it ends up teaching students all sorts of unproductive attitudes about reading while twisting the very reading process itself. Only read books on the approved list. Don't read long books-- it will take you too long to get to your next quiz to earn points. If you're lagging in points, pick short books that are easy for you. Because the AR quizzes are largely recalling questions, learn what superficial features of the book to read for and skip everything else. And while AR doesn't explicitly encourage it, this is a program that lends itself easily to other layers of abuse, like classroom prizes for hitting certain point goals. Remember kids-- there is no intrinsic reward or joy in reading. You read only so that somebody will give you a prize.

While AR has been adopted in a huge number of classrooms, it's not hard to find folks who do not love it. Look at some articles like "3  Reasons I Loathe Accelerated Reader" or "Accelerated Reader: Undermining Literacy While Undermining Library Budgets" or "Accelerated Reader Is Not a Reading Program" or "The 18 Reasons Not To Use Accelerated Reader." Or read Alfie Kohn's "A Closer Look at Reading Incentive Programs." So, a wide consensus that the Accelerated Reading program gets some very basic things wrong about reading.

But while AR sells itself to parents and schools as a reading program, it also does a huge amount of work as a data mining operation. Annually the Renaissance people scrape together the data that they have mined through AR and they issue a report. You can get at this year's report by way of this website.

The eyebrow raising headline from this year's report is that a mere 4.7 minutes of reading per day separate the reading stars from the reading goats. Or, as US News headlined it, "Just a Few More Minutes Daily May Help Struggling Readers Catch Up." Why, that's incredible. So incredible that one CURMUDGUCATION: Accelerated Reader's Ridiculous Research:

California’s emerging teacher shortage: Field Poll | EdSource

Teacher Shortage Field Poll | EdSource:

California’s emerging teacher shortage: Field Poll 

Published on November 17, 2015

California registered voters regard the emerging shortage of K-12 teachers as a very serious problem and think that the state should be taking decisive action to rectify the situation, according to a poll commissioned by EdSource and the Learning Policy Institute.

The survey was conducted by the Field Poll, with support from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, following recent reports indicating that the number of new teaching credentials issued in California has declined steadily for more than a decade, along with even more precipitous reductions in teacher preparation program enrollments.

Read the full story about the poll, or scroll down for more detailed data from the results.

 Teacher Shortage Field Poll | EdSource:

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ISSUE

August 17, 2015

Efforts to attract new teachers stall in state Legislature

July 14, 2015

California’s dwindling teacher supply rattling districts’ nerves

May 21, 2015

New California teaching credentials decline for 10th successive year

“A Test Score is an approximation, not a precise measure” (George Washington University) - Wait What?

“A Test Score is an approximation, not a precise measure” (George Washington University) - Wait What?:

“A Test Score is an approximation, not a precise measure” (George Washington University)

As the nation’s colleges and universities move away from relying on standardized tests scores to determine whether a student is capable and ready to attending college, public officials in Connecticut and across the country continue their mindless devotion to more standardized testing as the means of determining whether our children our “college and career read.”

In Connecticut this past spring, Governor Dannel Malloy and the General Assembly voted to mandate that every high school junior take the SAT.

The new law was part of Malloy’s larger “education reform” initiative that has been forcing Connecticut public school students and their teachers to devote more and more time preparing for and taking the “Common Core aligned” standardized tests.

Malloy and other proponents of the Common Core and Common Core testing scheme continue to claim that the excessive testing programs are needed in order to determine whether Connecticut students, schools and teachers are succeeding.

Under Malloy’s policy, not only will the state rate schools and students based on standardized test results, but Connecticut’s public school teachers will also be evaluated on how well their students do on these unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory tests.

However, while Malloy and the legislature were mandating that every 11th grader take the SAT, George Washington University in Washington, D.C. was announcing that students applying for their prestigious undergraduate program would no longer be required to even submit SAT or ACT scores with the college applications.

Michael Feuer is a Dean at George Washington University and the elected President of the “A Test Score is an approximation, not a precise measure” (George Washington University) - Wait What?:

The Real Rationale for Common Core, and Why It is Failing | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Real Rationale for Common Core, and Why It is Failing | Diane Ravitch's blog:

The Real Rationale for Common Core, and Why It is Failing

 

When Arne Duncan was made Secretary of Education, he brought in a group of advisors, largely from the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation, to help him design what eventually became the Race to the Top, which was funded by Congress with $5 billion in discretionary money, to reform American education. Duncan asked Joanne Weiss to take charge of Race to the Top.

At the time, Joanne Weiss was CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, a California-based organization dedicated to spurring for-profit entrepreneurs and investing in charter schools, both start-ups and chains. Her previous experience was in educational technology. I can’t find any evidence that she ever worked in a school. She was an entrepreneur. She and her advisers came to the conclusion that the biggest problem in American education was its extreme decentralization (local control). They decided that if there were a national system of standards and assessments, then the businesses making textbooks, technology, and everything else would have a national market and the quality of their products would be far better. It was a rational decision for someone from the business world. She wrote on the blog of the Harvard Business Review, a brief essay that should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the philosophy behind the education policies of the Obama administration:

Technological innovation in education need not stay forever young. And one important change in the market for education technology is likely to accelerate its maturation markedly within the next several years. For the first time, 42 states and the District of Columbia have adopted rigorous common standards, and 44 states are working together in two consortia to create a new generation of assessments that will genuinely assess college and career-readiness.

The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.

In this new market, it will make sense for teachers in different regions to share curriculum materials and formative assessments. It will make sense for researchers to mine data to learn which materials and teaching strategies are effective for which students – and then feed that information back to students, teachers, and parents.

If we can match highly-effective educators with great entrepreneurs and if we can direct smart capital toward these projects, the market for technological innovation might just spurt from infancy into adolescence. That maturation would finally bring millions of America’s students the much-touted yet much-delayed benefits of the technology revolution in education.

The reason to standardize education across the nation is to create an attractive business climate for entrepreneurs. National standards and tests will encourage them to develop products for this new national market.

This is certainly the first time in American education that the U.S. Department of Education took on the role of creating a national market for entrepreneurs. This was the Obama administration’s idea of “reform.”

It was a risky bet. No effort was made to pilot the Common Core standards, to find out how they would really work in real classrooms with real students and real teachers. The rush to implementation created a backlash. Weiss was correct in assuming that every textbook publisher would revised their texts and online programs to align with the Common Core or claim to have done so. But, some states have dropped the Common Core. Some are reviewing them with the intention of tailoring them to the needs of their states. About half the states that agreed to join one of the two testing consortia have withdrawn, either because of political controversy or because of online testing.

The effort to establish a unified national system, for the benefit of entrepreneurs, was illegal, in my view. The federal law says very clearly that no officer of the federal government may seek to influence, direct, or control curriculum or instruction. Arne Duncan likes to say that he The Real Rationale for Common Core, and Why It is Failing | Diane Ravitch's blog:

A teacher's tale: Joy, tragedy and weirdness - NonDoc

A teacher's tale: Joy, tragedy and weirdness - NonDoc:
A teacher’s tale: Joy, tragedy and weirdness
A new book from a retired teacher argues data-driven policies have created an education mess

(Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from A Teacher’s Tale, a new book chronicling author John Thompson’s experiences teaching in inner-city Oklahoma City Public Schools. The portion reproduced here is the book’s introduction, which has been slightly edited for length and style.)

I was never a hat-snatcher. I did not believe in grabbing students’ contraband, whether it was hats, cell phones, marijuana, or gambling proceeds. So how did I find myself firmly holding half of a gang leader’s hat, ignoring the teenager’s threatening look?

This standoff occurred in the library hallway, as I organized about 20 of my class’s 70 students for checking out textbooks. I had approached several disruptive students with a teacher’s typical phrase, “hats please.” Hats were removed, as I addressed another group causing a disruption. I repeated, “hats please” to those who had put their caps back on, when I heard a loud scuffle near the library door. Immediately in front of me, I saw the “gang banger” with a heavyweight championship boxer’s physique and a cap back on his head. I took it from him, leaving us both in a standoff.

It made no sense to distribute books in such a tense situation, but what was the alternative? The 2006 school year had just begun, and I was assigned 247 students. I had experienced my share of challenging classes in the past and won them over. This year, however, my class schedule was overwhelming; it was the same for every other teacher at John Marshall High School in Oklahoma City.

Should I just hold recess or should I attempt to teach? When our school’s teachers found themselves in such a mess, they often chose extended recess, and many of my colleagues had again done so, contributing even more to the anarchy throughout the school. Giving up on instruction for an unknown time flew against all of my instincts. Intimidating students was not consistent with my temperament, either. Leadership alone would not be enough to settle this class down. I had to make it clear that I was in charge, and to do so I had to approach the crowd with a mindset that I did not enjoy.

Ignoring the student who was glaring down on me, I instructed students to enter the library in groups and obey the librarian. A principal eventually appeared. As opposed to a teacher, she could bluff, “I’m on my last nerve. Do you want me to send you home for the year?”

This episode encapsulates many of the trends that have complicated the challenge of improving poor schools. Teachers nationwide are expected to educate, discipline, protect, mentor, and evaluate students and report on successes, achievements, and progress within a system of often-shrinking resources. Politicians, policymakers, administrators, and parents demand results—quality that can be translated into measured outcomes. This meant that our activities in the classroom to educate children needed to be reflected in specific numbers—higher rates of graduation, better scores on standardized tests, every student college-ready and marked for success in the competitive global marketplace.

Like so many other districts across the country, ours had adopted a new data-driven formula for determining how many teachers should be assigned to each school. District policymakers had no way of knowing how many of our students, who had endured so much trauma, were different from most low-income students. The central office had no way of knowing the difference between children of situational poverty caused by divorce, an illness, or the temporary loss of a parent’s job, and generational or extreme poverty. Even worse, the district embraced data-driven policymaking before creating a system where humans could override policies that the numbers suggested might be a good idea, but that would not be adequate when all of the complicated realities were considered.

Joy, tragedy and weirdness

In 2006, John Marshall High School was 84 percent low-income and 87 percent black, hispanic, and American Indian, with a quarter of the student body requiring special education services. The proliferation of school choice, a movement designed to give parents options to select alternative schools when their local public institutions were failing, had, in fact, created more intense concentrations of generational poverty in urban schools. From the smaller cities like Oklahoma City and Kansas City to industrial metropolises like Baltimore and Philadelphia, school districts had reached a tipping point, a fragile and teetering position bordering on complete meltdown.

(David Bierschank)

And yet we teachers keep coming back, year after year, fueled by another surge of optimism. A Teacher’s Tale is for young people who look to the profession as a career choice that offers the opportunity to contribute, to make a difference in the world, one student at a time. A Teacher’s Tale is for you—the teacher who has—or will—land up in this inexplicable situation, faced with pressure to achieve measurable outcomes of student learning on the one hand, and violence and chaos in the hallways and classrooms on the other.

The adrenalin rush of teaching comes from the combination of joy, tragedy, and, simply put, weirdness, and the myriad ways that these ups and downs keep on coming. There is no other profession that provides that kind of rollercoaster thrill. Before the morning bell, I would sip coffee, chat, joke, pass out newspapers, magazines, flowers, and fruit to students at John Marshall. The instant the announcements were over, I completely threw myself into instruction. I would forget about my cup of coffee and what craziness might await around the corner. I’d be there one-hundred percent for my students.

My own story of “a teacher’s tale” is first offered as an introductory handbook for my A teacher's tale: Joy, tragedy and weirdness - NonDoc:

New study says standardized pay for Alaska's teachers would be too expensive | Alaska Dispatch News

New study says standardized pay for Alaska's teachers would be too expensive | Alaska Dispatch News:

New study says standardized pay for Alaska's teachers would be too expensive 

If Alaska implemented a standardized salary schedule for its teachers, most rural school districts would have to pay their educators a lot more, said a new study completed for the state Legislature.

According to the pay schedule, Anchorage should pay it teachers 10 percent more. But in Southeast Alaska’s Pelican City School District, it would mean a whopping 105 percent raise.

But ultimately, researchers advised against the pay schedule that they developed for the study. Even though it would help communities attract and retain highly-qualified teachers, it would simply cost too much, said the study by University Alaska Anchorage’s Center for Alaska Education Policy Research.

The pay schedule took into account student demographics, costs to travel to a hub, teacher turnover rates, climate and labor force participation, among a host of other factors.

“Frankly, the state can’t afford to pay educators what our schedule says it should,” said Diane Hirshberg, the center’s director. Instead, the state must get innovative when it comes to education, she said.

“Given the state’s current and future fiscal challenges, the status quo is not going to suffice for our rural schools,” the study concluded.

The pay schedule detailed in the study would increase salary costs by about 15 percent across Alaska. It would require most rural school districts to offer salaries higher than their urban counterparts.

Pelican City School District would have to pay a first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree about $85,853. Fairbanks would pay that teacher about $43,961 and Anchorage would pay $51,719, according to the schedule.

While Anchorage should pay it teachers 10 percent more, according to the pay schedule Fairbanks, Juneau and Ketchikan could pay its teachers slightly less. In the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, teachers in Wasilla, Palmer, Meadow Lakes, Big Lake and Houston got paid just the right amount.

“Based on this analysis, it appears that Mat-Su School District is paying enough to attract teachers to teach in schools in their central communities, but not more than they need to,” the study said.

Mat-Su would have to pay its teachers less than Anchorage School District under the schedule, the study said. 

"This likely reflects a number of factors, including the increasing challenges that Anchorage faces around educating immigrants, English language learners, and students in poverty, as well as the relatively lower housing costs and high community amenities of the Mat‐Su area," it said.

Researchers said that while the salary schedule accurately reflected teachers’ preferences, they couldn’t ensure that it would actually result in rural schools being able to attract and retain qualified teachers.

“Teachers decide where to work, and whether to stay or leave their school and district based on many factors in addition to salary,” the study said.

Hirshberg said that the state must look at ways to improve working conditions for teachers in rural Alaska and then their salaries may not have to increase as much.

"In a lot of these rural communities, teachers are feeling like they are not supported," Hirshberg said.

The study also recommended further research around creating a merit-based pay schedule and that the Legislature not change the Alaska teacher tenure system. It should revisit that system after assessing how well school districts’ new teacher evaluation system works, the study said.

The new study stemmed from the omnibus education bill passed in 2014 under former Gov. Sean Parnell.

Rep. Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole, co-chaired the Sustainable Education Task Force that year, which recommended the analysis of New study says standardized pay for Alaska's teachers would be too expensive | Alaska Dispatch News:

New York’s costly experiment in test-based educator evaluation is crashing - The Washington Post

New York’s costly experiment in test-based educator evaluation is crashing - The Washington Post:

New York’s costly experiment in test-based educator evaluation is crashing

On September 30, 2011, Carol Burris, then the award-winning principal of South Side High School in New York, wrote about the creation of a new New York State teacher and principal evaluation system in an Answer Sheet post titled, “The dangers of building a plane in the air.”  That piece, one of many about the system known as APPR, detailed the problems with the way New York State education officials were designing and intending to implement it — and she predicted that it would ultimately fail. Her predictions, not surprisingly, have now officially come true.

This is how that 2011 post started:

Buckle your seat belts and hold on for your life. Teachers and principals, welcome to APPR Airlines flight 2011. Your journey on the ‘plane to be built in the air’ just took off from New York’s Albany airport.

This description of the New York teacher and principal evaluation system known as APPR is not my critique of an incomplete and untested evaluation system. Rather, it is the description provided by the state Education Department itself. Across New York State, all of the school and district leaders who evaluate teachers are being pulled out of their schools for mandated, taxpayer-funded training in this APPR teacher and principal evaluation system.

The scripted curriculum given to local trainers by the Education Department begins with a bizarre video of smiling mechanics wearing unopened parachutes, building an unfinished plane in flight—all of which the trainers liken to APPR, which means Annual Professional Performance Review. As the narrator tells us, “Some people like to climb mountains. I like to build planes…in the air.” You can find the video here.

It is labeled a ‘funny video’ on YouTube. Not a school leader in the room laughed. Likening a system that is now driving professional evaluations and student testing to what could have been an episode of the Three Stooges did not amuse. I felt sad. Leaders of integrity and courage do not let unfinished planes with students and teachers aboard off the ground.

As the day progressed, we learned just how unfinished that plane is.

 Here is a new post about the fate of APPR across New York from Burris, who retired as principal this past June and is now the executive director of the nonprofit Network for Public Education Fund. She was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. In 2010, she was selected as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.

By Carol Burris

The controversial 2015 New York teacher evaluation system rushed into lawby Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will be put, for all practical purposes, on hold for the 2015-16 school year. According to a report from North Country Public Radio, 90 percent of all school districts in New York State were granted hardship waivers by the State Education Department because they were unable to successfully negotiate new evaluation systems by the November 15th deadline. And so the Board of Regents is expected to punt the deadline still further into the future, making it nearly impossible to evaluate teachers and principals using the new system this school year.

You can expect that within a week or so, the governor will have his new education adviser, Jere Hochman, draft a statement that will attempt to New York’s costly experiment in test-based educator evaluation is crashing - The Washington Post: