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11 Comments For This Post

1. Mr. Smith should go to Washington! Says:
   November 5th, 2007 at 7:26 pm

   Jeff Smith is on the ball! I get so annoyed when people say he is not for the black community. Keeping teachers on the payroll because of race is stupidity! If a teacher can’t even pass a test of the material they are teaching then they should be kicked to the curb. This is a great accountability measure and the kids deserves it!

2. Anonymous Says:
   November 5th, 2007 at 8:09 pm

   It would be fine if he would mandate this statewide, not just for SLPS. Why shouldn’t all kids benefit from good teachers, after all?

3. jim heger Says:
   November 5th, 2007 at 8:18 pm

   As a teacher in the SLPS I would have no problem with the type of test Mr. Smith proposes.

   I suspect that his bill did not become law, not because of this test, but because of another proposal that wanted to grant merit pay based on student performance. The opportunities for perversion of the process are immense and the process itself unwieldy.

   Quite frankly, I don’t think the SLPS under ANY leadership could do it fairly and accurately.

   Classes are too different (also, some kids are pretty difficult to accurately track because of the frequent moves, etc…). We really DON’T want to rely on the testing too much. Too many tests take away too much learning time. We lose too much of that with disruptive students already. You would be shocked at how much time is lost. Disruptions are MUCH more of a problem then teachers lacking in knowledge. This is what should be addressed in many low performing schools.

   I digress. Give your test, I don’t care what color person takes it as long as it is a fair and accurate gauge. Mr. Smith’s bill should be presented again, by itself, (without the merit pay based on test score thing) and see what happens.

   Giving it statewide is a good idea too.

4. Anonymous Says:
   November 5th, 2007 at 8:46 pm

   Wow. Nice to see some common sense for a change on an SLPS issue. And to see somebody willing to speak difficult truths even if there are political risks involved.

5. Anonymous Says:
   November 5th, 2007 at 9:42 pm

   Jeff Smith is full of it. Jeff Smith knows nothing about race.

6. Anonymous Says:
   November 5th, 2007 at 9:44 pm

   Race is so not an issue that if a black man said this he would be lynched. Be real. Let’s have a real conversation about race. Most of the race is not an issue postings are from the Post.

7. Sambo Says:
   November 5th, 2007 at 9:48 pm

   Jeff will you have just as open discussion about choice in education. No. You are playing to the black vote and we ant falling for it

8. Sally Says:
   November 6th, 2007 at 5:16 pm

   Jeff Smith’s idea at least seems to have some kind of merit. I don’t understand why the merit pay idea won’t work though Mr. Heger (nice to hear from an insider in the SLPS). We need creative solutions to some huge problems in our public school system. There’s lots of evidence out ther supporting the idea that giving teachers incentive really does work.

9. Anonymous Says:
   November 6th, 2007 at 6:28 pm

   Here’s my question. If the teachers pass the tests, and the kids are still failing, has anyone (besides the teachers) thought ahead to the next plan? Because there will be a lot of teachers in SLPS who pass, despite some very loud voices to the contrary. My kids have had them. That would be the reason merit pay won’t fix the problem; you are basing a teacher’s bonus on the kid’s performance, and the teacher could do a bang up job and the kids could pull a stunt like those kids in Wentzville did, blowing a test on purpose. I’d rather see the merit pay based on the teacher’s performance on a knowledge test, or something the teacher actually has some control over. Imagine if your paycheck was based on the performance of a factor you had no control over. Most of us wouldn’t like it.

10. jim heger Says:
    November 6th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    Sally,
    The idea of merit pay disturbs me because things in the SLPS are not always judged on a level playing field.

    Different teachers are given different types of students based on the teacher’s strengths and weaknesses (if the principal has any sense of using staff to their potential). In other words, a principal who wants to do their best on the state tests (who wouldn’t?) might load up a teacher with discipline problem children simply because the principal knows that teacher can (more or less) control those kids. Controlling those kids, and minimizing their disruption to the rest of the school atmosphere, is more important than trying for high test scores from this particular group. So…(a long way around, I know) the teacher who takes the “worst” of the “worst” ends up contributing the most in controlling school discipline problems, but the least in student progress. Therefore, low progress on test scores equals…no increase in pay. Great incentive to handle the toughest kids. Teachers can (in many cases, I believe) actually end up being punished monetarily for being able to take the kids who need the most help (the “worst kids”).

    Maybe not.

11. j.h. Says:
    November 6th, 2007 at 7:58 pm

    Good Lord, does that make any sense?

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