Reform for Teacher Pay in North Carolina
Elementary school teachers play a more important role then what society gives them credit for. They are responsible for nurturing children’s minds seven hours a day, five days a week not to mention the “behind the scenes” care they give. Society expects teachers to put forth significant amounts of effort in teaching and nurturing elementary school children. However, with such an important task one would expect elementary school teachers to be paid more. That doesn’t seem to be the case when discussing the salaries of elementary school teachers. To keep effective, quality, and passionate teachers in the school system something must be done to pay teachers a higher salary.
One of the easiest ways to
…show more content…
Instead an official in the school systems who doesn’t work at the school should review the teacher’s interactions, work ethic, and overall effort he or she puts into teaching the class. Like the court systems in the United States it can be obvious when someone is guilty or not guilty. Just like it’s obvious when teachers put forth the effort to teach their classes and nurture their student’s minds. Senator John Geodde in his opening debate stated,” Senators, we have an educator pay scale that’s built in the 19th century it doesn’t work, and doesn’t recognize excellence. ( NC Senate Plan)” In other states however people argue to decrease pay scales. For example, in Melbourne the school commission argues,” since teacher’s salaries account for 85 percent of the schools budget the best way to save money was to cut back on teachers. (Bruce) Reform for teacher pay and the entire system is necessary to keep quality teachers in our schools. Without quality teachers, our students and school systems will suffer. A suffering school system will not produce the high performing students expected. To keep the school system performing well, teachers need to be paid more and differently. Also, teachers need to have assay in the decision-making process. This will lead to quality teachers and a quality education
With the low expectations of teachers, students are limited in their ability to learn. As discussed before, it is difficult to predict how well a teacher will do at their job before they begin working. This creates doubt when hiring anyone, and employers may not know if who they are hiring is the right choice. If teachers are judged by not only the basic requirements met, but also their interpersonal skills and how well they are able to teach in a positive manner, there will hopefully be less mediocre teachers hired. In the same way, both an advanced teacher and an average teacher are paid the same wages, which creates a flaw in education. Even more, there should not be average teachers in the workforce if all teachers are paid the same. Though this harms the advanced teachers, who deserve more than they earn, it also harms the students, as they are taught at a lower level by the inadequate teachers. Gladwell mentions these flaws in his article, but he also explains the traits good teachers should have, which brings a strive forward in this issue. Because of this, it is clear America must be more selective and strict when hiring
Students and teachers are both stuck, and in order to have a successful school system we must have happy teacher. To bring exciting lesson plans and less bored students, we need happy teachers, in order to have happy teachers the government needs to allow teachers to teach how they
Salary schedules for public school teachers are almost a common feature in public school districts. These schedules largely determine the salaries for the teachers. A single district schedule sets the pay for hundreds of thousands of teachers in thousands of schools (Besharov 1). The key factor that influences the pay for the teachers in the salary schedules include experience in terms of years and the total number of graduate course works that a teacher has completed. This paper will look at the cons and pros of the salary schedules in terms of an economic point of view.
The educational system must keep a certain number of children in schools at all costs. Sometimes the system is not concerned with the performance of the students as long as they are in school. If teachers graded the way they should, the failure rates would be much higher than they are today.
Taylor Mali, an American slam poet and teacher, wrote a poem titled, “What Teachers Make”. In this poem, he rhythmically tells about other professions criticizing teachers based on their choice of occupation. While teachers will never earn six figure incomes, they make a difference. Teachers dedicate their lives to leading, inspiring, and educating future generations, all while earning meager pay. Though teachers form foundation of education, their pay does not accurately represent their skills. Using merit pay systems will properly assess how much a teacher should be paid, based on their teaching ability.
When was the last time that you saw a teacher sporting off a brand new Lexus? Or when was it that you heard of a teacher owning a ranch? The answer to this question is probably never. Although material possessions such as owning a luxurious home or driving an extravagant car might be chump change for people like the rich and famous, for teachers this kind of spending is literally an arm and a leg. Even simple necessities are out of reach with a teacher’s salary. The reason for this problem is due to our nation’s budget. Teachers along with others in the school system are underpaid and are not being adequately compensated for their services. Instead of rewarding teachers with higher pay the government is undermining their work. As a result, teachers are unable to buy that expensive car or even pay off that Honda that they bought when they were in college working for their teaching degree. School budgets must be increased immensely in order to insure the educational growth of students and the professional development of teachers. There are four main reasons that are discussed in this paper, as to why more money should be spent on education.
Some locations in the United States are trying to improve their education by adding quality teachers. A major reason why there is an achievement gap in education is because there exist a gap in teachers as well. Research has shown that teacher quality counts. Some states are seeking ways to keep quality teachers and ways to attract them. In New York City, the schools will not hire teachers that are not certified. Also, New York and California are adding some sort of incentive in public schools, to attract quality teaching to minority schools. Sometimes school add annual bonus up to $10,000 for qualify teacher to work in public school, with low achieving schools. Also, many state provide some sort of tuition assistance for teacher, but of all of the states only seven target the candidates to commit to the lower achieving schools (Olsen, 2003).
There are many ways to compile data on a teacher and determine that person’s performance. Teacher performance can be based upon classroom observation, a teacher’s continuing development and education, and students’ standardized testing scores. The controversy centers around using student test scores to determine the performance of a teacher and thus her pay. Scott Andes, a research analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation voices the merits of performance based pay with his article “Getting Serious with Education: Why Can We Measure Students but Not Teachers?” High School English teachers, Jordan Kohanim and Ashley Ulrich vehemently state why there is no merit with performance based pay with their article, “No Merit to Merit Pay Arguments.” In each article both sides debate how performance based or merit pay will affect students, teachers, schools, and com...
There is no more critical role in our current society than that of a teacher’s. Teachers help shape the minds of the future. Tomorrow 's engineers, scientists, politicians, and educators are all greatly influenced by today 's Instructors. Without teachers society would not be anywhere near where it is now, and only a select few would have access to learning. Sadly however important teachers are in human civilization, they are still drastically understated, unrecognized and under paid. Although some people may argue that performance pay is good, performance/merit pay is bad because it will result in teachers doing much less personalizing of the curriculum, and spending that time doing only what things need to teach in order to keep their student’s
Duke, Daniel L., ed. Incentive Pay and Career Ladders For Today's Teachers. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. 42-241. Grand Rapids Community College Database . Web. 6 Apr. 2014. .
We have to admit that humans often need incentives. For most people, money is a driving force which can inspire them to make progress (Barbieri, 52). If by performing better, you could earn more money, I think most people would gladly perform well and strive to achieve better results. Teachers are also human beings, and the vast majority of them would feel the same. Higher wages can increase the enthusiasm and motivation of teachers. At the same time, merit pay can improve teachers’ motivation, not only because of the money, but also because of a sense of accomplishment (Honawar and Olson, 26-27). When a teacher, through his or her own careful research of teaching strategies, passion, and devotion to teaching, help his or her students get better grades and is also rewarded by the schools, he or she will be filled with a sense of purpose. This will make that teacher know his or her effort is worth it, and in following lessons he or she would strive to expend even more energy and time to improving his or her teaching level and quality. Meanwhile, outstanding teachers will also become role models for other teachers who do not get bonuses. In this case, in a school, it will form a healthy competition among teachers. Everyone will be more diligent and strive to improve the level and quality of their
The state’s new evaluation system was in response to administrators who produced, “superficial and capricious teacher evaluation systems that often don't even directly address the quality of instruction, much less measure students' learning” (Toch, 2008). Too often, the “good-ol-boy” attitude would insure mediocre educators would remain employed. Realizing this was often more the rule then the exception, the governor created educational mandates to focus, “on supporting and training effective teachers to drive student achievement” (Marzano Center, 2013). Initially, they expected the school districts and the teachers would have issues and experience growing pains, but in the end the goal was, “to improve teacher performance, year by year, with a corresponding rise in student achievement” (Marzano Center, 2013).
Many students suffer from the school system. Many students face problems in schools because lack of the system. There are so many problems in school that should never be there, education now involving more problems than anything else. In recent years so many people have lost their lives in the class-room. There are ways to improve school system by police presence, to end overcrowded condition, and to hire more qualified teachers.
Public school education system is important and should be taken very seriously. It is the starting foundation to each and every one of our lives. Our educators, lay down the pathway for education.. In today’s world, teachers play a big role in building America. They are the ones who encourage our children to excel into their greatest self. Without teachers, society would face a drastic downfall. There would not be many professions around. Doctors would be unable to save the lives of our friends and families. There would not be any police officers to protect and serve, nor there be a president to lead this country. The public school education system, as a whole, is something that has been over looked for some time. While other professions are progressing in life, the Public Education System, in general, is staying the same. Teaching is not an easy job. The hours are long, the demands are high, and the working conditions are often challenging .Given the conditions, in which, this profession is carried out, a better financial plan is needed to accommodate for the, unbalanced, priority.
Education has played an important role in people’s lives and receiving the best education is a right to all humans, but now in days we can see that our education system is in deep distress. This is made evident by the low rate of graduates; that’s why our education system needs to be improved. Many people think that our government is responsible for our bad education system, However, teachers are the real issue even though many teachers are saying they 're doing their best, they’re not. How do we improve our education system? For a start, we need to provide better teaching programs for teachers to improve their skills and make them earn their tenure instead of just giving it to them.