Inservice

Friday was an inservice day. First we listened to a presentation by two Q-Comp representatives. Q-Comp or ATTPS (don’t ask me what it stands for - educators love acronyms) is Pawlenty’s idea to improve public education. It’s a new way to pay teachers. I don’t know if it’s totally incentive pay or what. But I do know that 75 million dollars have been set aside for schools who want to jump on board.

I already know what you’re thinking, for I’ve thought the same thing too - educators are always jumping aboard some damn thing - out come based education, the profiles of learning, no child left behind, now this. Of course, like the profiles of learning (or grad standards, as some called it), the administrators and state people trying to scare the hell out of us all with getting in compliance with new regulations.

Seven years ago they were trying to scare the hell out of us with grad standards. Our district dolled out hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get us all to fall in line. As a new teacher at the time, I fell right in line - going to summer workshops and reorganizing my curriculum to fit the standards. This was not all bad, but I did a lot of work that amounted to wasted time because soon the standards were scrapped. While I was panicking to get all the standards incorporated into my curriculum and devise cool lessons that could meet all of the standards, several of my colleagues literally furrowed their brows and shook their heads while grumbling, “This too shall pass.” Many of my colleagues who had bought in to the standards cautioned us again and again that, “This is here to stay.” However, in a few short years, the profiles of learning did pass right by. I have a cabinet full of student grad standard packets to prove it.

Now we have ATTPS being pushed on us. Our superintendent brought it up to us two years ago. He talked about all the money the state was putting aside for schools interested. There was no obligation. Just sign up as an interested school and some money automatically comes your way to begin training. There was even a list of the area schools that were interested and signing up. Well, we voted that proposal down right away.

And what happens? At the start of this year, it’s brought right back up again. One teacher here, our “Guru” of the gurus, who also happens to be superintendent’s right hand woman, is championing ATTPS again. Not only that, but now our first inservice day is devoted to their horse and pony show.

For two hours we were subjected to a proposal by a former principal who now works for the state department and a suit for the department who has never set foot inside a classroom since he graduated. The former principal, a woman, was informative. The suit, a man, was a wet noodle. The teachers pretty much ate them alive.

The ATTPS people started off with some facts and figures. Of that 75 million set aside for schools interested, only 43 million has been used. Of the 343 school districts and 100 and some odd charter schools, 43 are signed up. So much for that initial sign up sheet we were shown where it seemed like everyone around us was hopping in on this.

Next the lady outlined the basis behind ATTPS or Q Comp -- a program endorsed by Pawlenty to improve teaching, retain quality teachers, and bring in better teachers. This is done by appointing “master” teachers (I grimaced at that) who will lead teams of other teachers and administrators who observe teachers and help design effective lessons. What one has to do to become a “master” teacher was not made clear. If it is anything like here, ass kissing is surely high on the ability list. As one colleague said, “This has the makings of one major ass kissing fiasco.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

In order to become a “master” teacher, I imagine one has to show an interesting in ATTPS or Q-Comp. I imagine they would also be recommended by administrators or others who have valued opinions (hence the ass kissing part). According to the presenters, the ‘master’ teachers watch training videos on effective teaching and they are trained in rubrics for grading effective teachers. (I damned near lost it there. I have a hard enough time with using rubrics for student writing, let alone to judge teachers. While they were saying this, I realized a delicious irony - we should have rubrics for presenters because in 8 years of teaching all one needs to be a ‘master’ presenter is to know how to use a slide show because that’s all they ever use. So much for effectively engaging their audience. I’m certain had anyone devised rubrics for grading presenters, these clowns would have failed miserably). Somewhere along the way a ‘master’ teacher meets with a ‘team’ (and that is another damned term over used in education) of other educators and administrators and ATTPS kiss asses who work together.

If this sounds confusing, you haven’t heard anything yet.

The next presenters were two ‘master’ teachers from Alexandria. They proved more entertaining than the previous ones. They went into more details about ATTPS, or as they called it T-Comp. One of the presenters was an English teacher of 25 plus years. He currently teaches two classes and then spends the rest of his time as a ‘master’ teacher working in conjunction with other teachers in all subjects and at all grade levels in his district.

How their T-Comp system works is that their school decides on one area of focus (in their examples they used “space and shape” and “comparison and contrast”). Then all teachers set two goals that deal with this area. One goal is ‘met’ if the teacher presents a binder that meets all the requirements set down by the ‘master’ teacher and his team. Another goal is ‘met’ if the students show adequate progress in that area. The presenters from Alexandria said their kids are tested three times a year to measure if their goals are attained. If each goal is met, the teacher receives a bonus above their regular wage. In the case of the presenters from Alexandria, each goal met earned them $600. So one teacher earned a total of $1,200 which he used to buy a new garage door.

They mentioned too how their district sets an overall goal of some sort in addition to the other two goals. If this one is met, that means more cash.

I’m all for paying teachers more, but I have some serious questions about this plan.

1. The presenter for Alexandria said that T-Comp has been a great opportunity for him to meet with teachers from all subjects and grade levels. He went so far as to say that he finally had a conversation with someone in the school that he hadn’t spoken to in 20 some years. My response to that is simple - what kind of horse shit school system do you have where you don’t speak to a colleagues for 20 years? I don’t need T-Comp to help me with that.

2. How does this look to the public? Aren’t we supposed to, as professionals, set goals for ourselves and our students? Why should the state shell out extra money to make sure we really do our jobs?

3. Who gets to be ‘master’ teachers? Personally, I think I do some damned remarkable things in my class, but I wouldn’t want that responsibility. I went into teaching to teach, not to advise my colleagues on how to better themselves. Mr. Dyrud was likely the best English teacher our school has ever had. Would the students have been better served with him teaching one or two classes and then having him advise others how to teach? No.

4. Currently our school board is hardly willing to hire a part time English teacher to help teach an overload. I don’t see them shelling out this extra money to hire subs for the ‘master’ to go through training and then miss several classes while they tend to their new duties. Plus, wouldn’t hiring subs eat up all the extra cash the state is willing to give us for signing on with ATTPS/Q-Comp/T-Comp?

5. My major worry is that our school board will use this to get rid of our salary lanes. They will say, Why should we pay you your current wage and then tack this extra money on? If they cut out our lanes, they will likely pay us less and then use the bonuses to make up the difference.

6. While this system is designed to improve teaching, I think it does just the opposite. Part of this system’s premise is to have teachers trained to develop superior lessons. Yet, if I am a ‘master’ teacher and have to miss parts of class to tend to my other obligations (monitoring other teachers, team meetings, ass kiss sessions, and so on), do I really want to trust my class - knowing they have to meet goals via standardized tests in order for me to get my bonus - to a sub? If my lessons are so great that even a sub can get my students to achieve my goal, what does that say about me as a teacher? I think it’s a way school boards could actually get rid of teachers.

7. If this goes through, it will start a major civil war among the teachers. I can already see signs being chosen. Obviously I’m on the “what the hell is our administration doing to us with this bullshit” side. Opposing us is the “ass kissing administrative wannabes.” Case in point, a colleague of mine used to come to dinner with a few of us over inservices and training days. But over the summer he was on a ‘committee’ and has been turned. Instead of talking about the truth and how to fix it, he is looking for an ass to kiss.