This is why I'm pretty much okay with the current pay scale based off of years experience. There are very few teachers who are long time teachers who AREN'T good at what they do. We are trying to reform teacher pay for a small percentage of experienced teachers who aren't "good" teachers, ie. they're lazy or don't care about teaching anymore.
I'm all for firing of teachers for inappropriate conduct. Although that is such a fine line between giving teachers due process when facing allegations and protecting teacher's jobs when they've acted unprofessionally. There are just as many unreported stories of teachers who are accused of misconduct by angry parents and students, with no basis other than they want to harm the teacher because they gave them a bad grade or told sharply told a kid to "shut up and sit down". I couldn't do my job as well as I could if I felt that I could be fired at anytime without due process for a baseless accusation by a parent or student.
We shouldn't be trying to fire or get rid of bad teachers, the current problem we face is that too many teachers quit in their first three years because they're not supported. I haven't the time to look up teacher retention in their first three years, but it isn't good at all. "Bad" teachers are almost exclusively teachers who aren't experienced, and who aren't supported in their first few years. They become frustrated because... well, they suck as their job. They either keep sucking at their job collecting a pay check, or they quit. And I feel confident in stating that there are VERY few teachers who are okay with showing up to work everyday and running and awful classroom. A large large percentage of teachers WANT to be good teachers, and they aren't motivated by money. They want to be good teachers, because when they wanted to be teachers in the first place, they wanted to be good at what they do: help students learn.
Let me paint everyone the scenario of my current middle school. It's currently ranked in the bottom 7% of ALL schools, private, public, and charter in Texas.
- School is labeled as Unacceptable
- Teacher work loads increase, more paper work, more pressure on testing, less time is given for grading papers, contacting parents, etc.
- Veteran teachers are going to transfer to another school, or seek employment elsewhere with less stess
- School is stuck hiring brand new teachers with no experience (some are alternative certified meaning they've never been in a classroom before)
- These new teachers are completely unprepared to deal with classroom management, lesson plan writing, dealing with parents
- Teachers, new and veteran, become overwhelmed, frustrated with unrealistic expectations... and "give up".
- Everyone fails, school is labeled as unacceptable, restart cycle with new administration and new teachers.
The biggest issue in my failing school is teacher retention. EVERY year they have to start all over from scratch with new teachers with little to no experience. They become overwhelmed and either quit or move on to a better environment.
Quite honestly I think it would be something if they were to offer pay scale based on how under preforming a school is. Since you are expected to "work more", maybe they should be paid more. It would be a way to actually attract veteran, experienced teachers to schools who NEED them. Because lets be honest, EVERYONE sucks ass teaching their first year. You would have a greater chance of keeping new teachers in the profession if their first teaching job wasn't the worst school in the area.
I think it'd be something else too, if schools were required to block off a certain percentage of their teaching staff as Veteran, Developing, and New teachers. Require that 1/3 of the staff be brand new teachers at EACH school, another 1/3 have 5-10 yrs experience, and have the last 1/3 have 10+ years. That would you could distribute the "experienced' teachers across schools and create a support system where good teachers are supporting developing and new teachers. Or at least offer different pay bonuses to encourage schools and teachers to distribute themselves across schools.
... That's just my four cents on the issue. There's no "right fix", I believe school reform needs to be done on a school-by-school level with parents, members of the community, and teachers working together to meet the needs of that particular school and community, everyone needs to be on the same page. This is why Charter Schools are more successful I think, they get everyone involved on board. The parents want their kids to be there, and teachers want to be there. Public schools are not the same population. You have to CONVINCE or SELL education to people whom may not want it to begin with.
(please don't discredit my post because of typos y'all, I'm not proof reading this, it's way too much. Be and adult and infer what I meant in my sentences if it's not grammatically correct or whatever.)