Looking at where Wake teachers want to work

Red Balloon wrote:
A better workplace attracts better workers. Demonstrate to me that I haven't been cheated off my earnings by negligent parents, conniving leadership, and students more at ease with profanity and violence than discipline and learning.

The truth finally comes out, huh Balloon? Your support of ol' Johnny's "Promise Zones" has nothing to do with focusing attention on students that were hidden by the previous student assignment policy, doesn't it?

Instead, it has everything to do with keeping those students who are "more at ease with profanity and violence" (read: poor kids) out of your neighborhood.

At least you're willing to tell the unvarnished truth. That's something Johnny hasn't been willing to do yet.

Wave that judgmental banner high, huh? And keep believing that every parent in a poor community is "negligent" and that every child growing up in poverty is "more at ease with profanity and violence."

The more often you spew that kind of bile, the angrier the honest folks in our community will get. We need more statements like yours to pull the covers off of the warm and fuzzy "neighborhood schools" rhetoric that the right is spinning.

Your responses are so predictable, Balloon---and they only go to reinforce my central point: That wealthy suburban communities are perfectly fine with funding inequities between schools in our communities.

The best part of your response is you focused on class sizes despite the fact that my entire post had to do with teacher salaries. Knowing that you're an intelligent person, I gotta believe that change of focus wasn't unintentional.

So let's bring the conversation back to salaries: East Garner Middle---a school that you cite in your class size statistics---has 5 teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Salem Middle---out in the affluent Western Corridor of our county----has 20.

Not only do teachers with National Board Certification have a proven track record at improving student achievement---creating an inequity in access to educational opportunity----but they are paid a 12% salary stipend every year for 10 years.

That means we're investing more of our tax dollars into Salem than we are into East Garner, plain and simple----and considering that teacher salaries are the single greatest expense in operating any school system, the disparity between spending at East Garner and Salem is great.

Explain to me how that's fair?

If I were a parent in an affluent school---or an elected official in an affluent township---I'd argue for more high poverty schools too. That way, the state would spend more on my kid's teachers than they do on the teachers in poor communities.

And if I were a parent in a poor community, I'd be pissed. Tax dollars are not being distributed equally to our schools, and it seems that at the very least, we should expect an equal distribution of resources.

Heck, I'll even go as far as to say that I DON'T want more money spent on high needs schools. Instead, just guarantee me that we'll spend AS MUCH on high needs schools----including on teacher salaries---as we do on the quasi-private academies that we've got in the rich pockets of our county.

Here's the interesting thing that seems to be left out of this conversation so far:

Teacher salaries---which in North Carolina are tied to years of experience and additional licenses that teachers can earn----are the single greatest expenditure of any school system. They're picked up largely by the state, although our county adds a percentage-based suppliment to every salary.

The hitch is that teachers with more experience and higher qualifications----thereby drawing significant levels of additional compensation----tend to work in suburban buildings with smaller percentages of students living in poverty.

Need proof? Check out this research report on the distribution of teachers holding qualifications with a demonstrated impact on improving student achievement in North Carolina's schools:

http://sanford.duke.edu/research/papers/SAN06-08.pdf

That means we spend SIGNIFICANTLY more on students in affluent suburbs than we do on students in high poverty schools simply because teachers in the 'burbs earn higher salaries.

They get 10% bonuses for master's degrees, 12% bonuses for National Board Certification and yearly increases based on experience. Meanwhile, students in high poverty buildings are taught by teachers with emergency/provisional licenses or teachers with less than three years of experience---factors that are known to result in poor learning for kids.

Add the salary differences up across faculties of 35-70 staff members, and you'll see that we spend MILLIONS more on suburban schools than we do on poor schools EVERY YEAR.

How's that fair?

Now, there's been lots of conversation in the press lately about attracting accomplished teachers to high poverty schools to balance out that inequity----which is a great idea for a school board that openly admits that it is planning to create high poverty buildings and which was one of the under-reported reasons that the diversity policy in place for the past 29 years helped to ensure that education resources were spent somewhat equitably in our county.

But attracting teachers to high poverty buildings requires incentivizing the work---a task that districts nation-wide have struggled to tackle.

Thankfully, North Carolina's teachers have outlined what kinds of incentives it would take to get them to move to high poverty buildings.

Here's their report:

http://www.teachingquality.org/pdfs/ncnbctrecs.pdf

What you'll notice is that their recommendations are going to require a significant investment in high poverty schools. On top of salary incentives, we're going to need to provide smaller class sizes, more professional development on the clock, more professionals working beyond the classroom---guidance counselors, school resource officers, social workers---than we currently provide.

Basically, we're going to have to give teachers in high poverty schools more money AND a fighting chance to succeed.

So are y'all willing to do that?

Are you willing to spend significantly more on improving the working conditions in high poverty schools? Will you support tax increases to protect students in schools that ain't in your "beloved neighborhood?"

Are you willing to see class sizes of 35+ in the suburbs in order to guarantee that there are smaller classes in John's "promise zones?" Are you willing to have one guidance counselor at Davis Drive so there can be 4 at Barwell?

If not, you'll never recruit accomplished teachers to high poverty buildings---and we'll continue to systematically cheat poor communities.

(That's the dirty little secret that people like Wake CARES, Keith Weatherly, and the Leesville community don't want you to know!)

Isn't it kind of obvious that teachers would want to escape violence and vulgarity?