Community Essay
A recent report by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future declared that one-fourth of our public school teachers are unqualified for their job. While disputing the scope of the commission’s findings, Crenshaw High English teacher ALFEE ENCISO found he shared many of the report’s concerns. Here Enciso lays out some of the solutions he envisions.
Instead of balking at the commission’s latest findings, teachers and their unions might use this “scathing indictment” as an opportunity to strengthen our profession instead of defending it.
The stark reality of teacher competency hits harder than a Ken Griffey Jr. line drive: Some of us are better than others and some should probably ditch school altogether. By my guess, a horrible 7% to 10% of my professional ilk strike out every day they open their classroom door. The teaching profession can shoulder some of the blame, but the system itself also is at fault.
In the LAUSD, there can be no distinguished players in education. The union’s bargaining unit and our district bureaucracy won’t allow it. For instance, a teacher, regardless of how much he or she does for a school, can be paid no more than one stipend (between $400 and $1,500) a semester. The union’s rationale? Bonuses wouldn’t be fair. Political favors might be sought. Principals would abuse their power like modern-day Boss Tweeds, with our schools sinking into fiefdoms of cronyism.
Perhaps such a paranoid, worst-case scenario could happen, but in my experience, the school’s administrative head usually grants jobs to those who are best suited for the work. Most principals are too busy running a campus to mire themselves in a demoralizing favoritism scheme. There is one thing that principals want: a school that looks good and runs efficiently.
The mentor teacher, who chairs the English department, runs the school newspaper and heads several committees on campus, gets paid nothing for extra-curricular efforts. A mentor cannot be paid anything additional because, according to some state education rule, $4,000 in extra pay is enough. Never mind that the mentor must work an extra 200 plus hours a year to earn that money.
But even more damaging to students is the teacher who has made it to the top.
Frankly, once a teacher is making top money and has established tenure, nothing motivates that person to develop professionally--or even to do a decent job. With a multitiered salary system, this practice could change; teachers would be paid and judged on their work.
For now, all that counts is that you have plodded, made it through the drudgery, put in your hours, and reached the top of the pay scale. It doesn’t matter if you’re a moron or the greatest thing since “Stand and Deliver.” What matters is the points. Every 14 points means another $150 to your monthly salary until you have reached the ultimate 98 point credits. After that, it’s tenure time.
This is certainly no way to improve the quality of education in our district. With merit pay, we’d be rewarding teachers for what they do (teach) and not how good they look on paper. Unfortunately, the current system only encourages mediocrity and punishes those who are truly the talented and dedicated instructors of our district. Ironically, the district has a system already intact that can easily replace this “equal” salary-step pay schedule. It’s called the District Intern Program.
This grueling two-year program is LAUSD’s shining star, earning national accolades as a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art program. Teachers in this program are given weekly and biweekly instruction while in the classroom, keeping up with the latest articles in their field, and maintaining a portfolio that chronicles their growth. At the end of the program, during the exit interview, teachers are evaluated on how they performed, and given a ranking of their methodology and subject mastery. An expansion of this program and a mandatory portfolio for all teachers would benefit all of us.
As I tell my students, being uncomfortable is all part of the growth process. I say, let’s inconvenience ourselves and start playing ball with the commission’s findings. Maybe then we won’t have to retreat to the faculty lounge when the next report comes out.
