Texas Ed Spectator

As if they don’t have enough to worry about:

Robbers Target Elementary School Teachers | WOAI.COM: San Antonio News

Northside ISD told News 4 WOAI that burglars, who may be trying to pose as parents, are sneaking into classrooms at the end of the school day and stealing teachers’ wallets and purses.

Technorati Tags: teachers, Northside ISD, safety

We have been meeting with several families to do some subjects together and all I can say is that I don’t know how teachers do it. Why do they go before a class of 20 or 30 students, most of whom don’t want to be there, many who don’t have paper or pencil much less homework with them, and try to teach to those remaining who may not be willing participants but are at least not disruptive? And then people want to evaluate you on your student’s achievement. I simply can’t imagine that seeing the “light bulb” going off in a couple of students is worth it all. Needless to say, I’m having some serious doubts about continuing our co-op next year.

MySA.com: MySA.com: Jobs:

Need a job? The Northside Independent School District needs to hire 800 teachers before the fall semester.So, if you’re qualified and you have teaching credentials, you could have a new job by summer.

The teachers are needed because 4,000 new students are expected to enter the school district this year.

“We’re going to open three more schools on top of the four that we opened last year, and the five we opened the year after. So, the need for new teachers is almost overwhelming,” said Pascual Gonzalez, spokesman for NISD.

“Northside school district is only interested in teachers of very high caliber, who can pass a criminal background check, and who are licensed by the state,” Gonzalez said.

There is a special need for candidates licensed in bilingual education, science, math and speech pathology.

Did you know that Northside ISD has a five to one student to teacher ratio? You see 4000 new students divided by 800 teachers is equal to five. Given that 4000 divided into an average classroom size of 20 calls for 200 teachers, I suspect Northside needs new teachers for reasons other than new students.

Now I’m sure that the teacher attrition rate at Northside is less than the state average but answer this question: would you take a job where for the first six years you would only receive less than a 0.5% pay raise and that chances are that you would never receive much more than a one percent raise over your career? That’s significantly less than the average yearly inflation rate.

Northside Independent School District
2005-2006 Step Pay Schedule
Classroom Teachers, Librarians, and Nurses

Given all the calls for experienced teachers from NCLB and the Governor’s Business Council, you would think that someone might start paying attention on how to keep experienced teachers. Make that effective experienced teachers. That would require teachers accepting that not everyone is going to get the same raise. Don’t most businesses have ranges for pay scales and raises? Why should I knock myself out when I’m going to get the exact same pay as the person who does the minimum to get by?

And for all of those who are quick to point out that there are lots of people that would love to be paid to work for only ten months a year, go for it, Northside is hiring. There’s a reason why people who become teachers through alternative training programs don’t stick around very long.

Except it is if you are going to reward effective teachers.

Star-Telegram | 03/03/2007 | Report: Future rests on teachers’ shoulders:

“Five years with an effective teacher, not just an average teacher, is sufficient to close the achievement gap between middle- and low-income youngsters,” said Sandy Kress, an Austin-based lobbyist and author of the report.

As former chief education adviser for President Bush, Kress helped construct the federal No Child Left Behind Act. He is also education adviser to the Governor’s Business Council, a nonprofit organization of Texas business leaders.

So it takes five years for a student to catch up? Is that with the same teacher or within the same subject? Is the improvement distributed evenly over the five years or does it start off slowly and then accelerate? How do they match the students and the teachers? If it takes five years, why are schools expected to get students on grade level within a year? And most importantly, how is a poor school district going to keep these effective teachers from moving to wealthier districts and better teaching conditions?

Star-Telegram | 03/03/2007 | Report: Future rests on teachers’ shoulders:

The initial cost of implementation, Kress said, would be between $125 million and $150 million.

Which will be funded how?

MySA.com: Metro | State:

As outlined by Kress, the system would develop over several years, take into account factors such as test scores, test score growth, principal and peer evaluations and ultimately allow the state and school districts to offer higher pay to teachers who demonstrate better results and take on more challenging assignments.He said no new money would be tied to the legislation this session, but that business leaders would endorse bonuses for teachers once a fair evaluation system was in place.

Are these the same business leaders that refuse to disclose the selling price of property to avoid paying their fair share of school property taxes? Until these business experts get real and address school finance, why are we even listening to these people?