Reward Me for Being Excellent?

While there has been a lot of discussion about the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) since its first appropriations in 2006, there hasn’t been any new funding to make new awards.  Late last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced 62 new TIF grantees!  KUDOS to all  the winners, but an ESPECIALLY BIG PAT ON THE BACK to the 13 awardees who use charters in their application: Achievement First, ARISE HIGH School, Center for Educational Innovation (x2), Hogan Preparatory Academy, Indiana Department of Education, Michigan Association of Public School Academies, Mastery Charter High School, National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, New Schools for New Orleans (also an i3 winner), The College-Ready Promise, Uplift Education, and Youth Empowerment Services, Inc.

TIF is based on a simple premise, rewarding excellent teachers can incentivize and improve teaching AND increase entrants into the teaching profession. It’s no secret that many of our nation’s teachers are not from the top of their college classes…so the idea is a simple one: To improve the chances of schools getting the best and the brightest in the classroom we need to offer them an incentive.  And certainly in this economy, we are kidding ourselves if we don’t think financial incentives don't make a difference. And, to help study that out-of-the-box notion, part of this year’s TIF grants go to a research competition too. 

Teachers Are Giving 'Em Something to Talk About

Education reform is on everybody's lips, and just about everybody has an idea for making schools better.  The discourse is dominated by elected officials (or hopefuls), policy folks, academicians and researchers. And although we've heard plenty from the teachers unions, teachers themselves haven't really much of a platform.  So, I was fascinated to learn about this new project called VIVA (Vision Idea Voice Action).  The project just kicked off last Monday as an incubated initiative of the New York Charter Schools Association.  

Here's how it works. There are two moderated online conversations -- one for teachers in New York, and one for teachers across the country -- and these websites allow classroom teachers to engage directly in education policy.  They are tackling some meaty issues like Race to the Top and Title II, as well as teacher pay, burnout and class size.  Best of all, their ideas will be presented directly to U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.  A small group of these teachers will be asked to write a summary of the action plan they are crafting now, and then to come for a private meeting with Arne in Washington, D.C. or New York State Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch in Albany.

Classroom teachers helping to shape education policy...now, that's a novel idea, eh?  I like it.

The conversation will be going on for the next three weeks.  Check it out.  

COMMENT
Submitted by drobinson on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 10:57am.

Dear My Foot,
We appreciate your comments, and just wanted to make sure you have the facts about charter schools.  Charter schools absolutely do not eliminate teacher unions. In fact, about 12 percent of charter schools are unionized.  It is always the teachers who decide whether or not they'd like to be unionized.  Oddly enough, when given that choice, most of the time charter teachers decide not to.  We at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools are neither pro-union nor anti-union.  We are pro-child and pro-achievement.  And by the way, we LOVE teachers.

Submitted by My Foot on Mon, 10/04/2010 - 9:55pm.
Charter Schools eliminate teacher unions and thus lower teacher and staff wages further, increasing the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Want to see teacher benefits vaporize along with weekends off? Charter Schools are union busting! Say NO to charter schools now!

Finally, the “ Waiting for Superman” Is Over

This has been whirlwind week for education reform.  "Superman" is finally here.  It will be the topic of the Oprah show today, and I'm told there are some big surprises coming for a group of great charter schools.  Time magazine devoted a cover to this issue last week, and last Wednesday night I went to the Washington, D.C. premier of “Waiting for Superman,” a  new documentary about some of the major challenges facing America’s education system.  It was like Hollywood on the Potomac.  All of D.C.’s beautiful people came together with the education wonks and official Washington, and we were all talking about how to make our schools better. It was a moment I’ve been waiting for a long time.


It is a tremendous time in education reform when an acclaimed advocacy filmmaker (An Inconvenient Truth’s Davis Guggenheim) takes on the crisis in education and the tangle of policy challenges we face every day. The result is an unprecedented opportunity for a true national discourse on reform. The film has rightfully attracted interest and attention from all areas of education and I’m  happy, because it means many who have been talking about education policy around private conference tables have come together to speak now around a bigger and more public table.


For years, folks on all sides of this issue have debated the best and most effective ways to fix public education. In fact, there are so many different ideas about what to do fix  first, there is sometimes a paralysis of indecision. However, “Waiting for Superman” reminds us that it is simpler than we think. If you back away from the nuances of policy far enough to look at the children who are really the focus of this work, it becomes a lot clearer. If we can all remember to put children first and make decisions based on what is best for them, we’ll find that we agree on more than we think. In fact, I bet we agree on more than we don’t. 


The door opened by this film brings the conversations to the widest and most influential group, the public, and that is as it should be. Public education is, after all, a public trust. If we’re going to achieve the long-term, systemic change that public education needs, we’ve got to use this opportunity to make sure the people in every community understand and engage on this issue and build the highest quality public school system this country has ever seen.  

COMMENT
Submitted by mrs t on Tue, 09/21/2010 - 12:22am.
I cannot wait for this documentary. I work at a new (4th year) inner city charter and our entire staff is going to watch it together. I am currently reading "Whatever it takes" about the founder of the Harlem Childrens Zone schools. It is so inspiring to read/learn about what other schools are doing right, especially when all we hear are negative things and criticism about education

Turning Over the Teacher Turnover Question