Reply to MCPS teacher with a PhD: what's your salary lane (Master's +30 or Master's +60)?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here's a crazy idea. Forget about paying for degrees and pay people based on performance! I know it's crazy, right?[/quote]
Measured how, exactly?[/quote]

What a crazy question.  It shows how removed you are from reality.  P
Your performance  is judged by how well your students perform. [/quote]

Crappy teachers with high income students do great at standardized tests

Amazing teachers with low income students don’t do as well on them

Should the crap teacher be rewarded with a higher pay just because the kids she teaches attend a school with high test scores, and live in 1 million dollar neighborhoods and are fortunate to have professional, highly invested parents?[/quote]
Why on earth are you assuming that teachers should be compared across schools? It's not a. Comparison of teachers.. it's a Comparison of individual students.  Do the students show proficiency at the end of the years vs the beginning of the year? 
[/quote]

Yes, I agree. However, measures of proficiency must be defined. As a 5th Grade teacher (currently home on COVID quarantine), if I have a student who begins the school year on a second grade benchmark level and ends the school year at a fourth grade benchmark, how is that progress evaluated? According to my principal, it only matters if the student meets grade level targets. Little regard is given to the growth the student did achieve and the amount of time and energy I invested helping the student achieve two-three years worth of progress in one year (a process that is extremely time intensive and requires a dedicated and concentrated focus on SEL in addition to skillful instruction). Unfortunately, the student is entering middle school below grade level because they have been pushed along in a system that does not value mastery and uses a one-size-fits-all approach to instruction.

Current curriculum used by MCPS allows very little foundational skill remediation and the expectation is we push through content regardless if a student has developed mastery. For example, students Who lack a concrete understanding of simple concepts such as addition and subtraction are still expected to multiply and divide fractions. As the student gets further and further behind they experience increased levels of frustration, anxiety, low self confidence, etc. This often leads to increased behavioral challenges and frequent outbursts, or the student becomes withdrawn and anxious, further affecting the class dynamics and time taken away from instruction.

I teach at a title I school with a transient population that includes many MLL students. In addition to many students not being on grade level when they enter my class, it is not uncommon to have 3-5 students transfer out and to receive an additional 2-3 students during the school year. Highly doubtful MCPS would use common sense and exclude those students from data when looking at my overall class progress in regards to possible monetary incentives regarding teacher performance.

Though unpopular, I am in favor of examining the extreme disparity between the salary of a three-year teacher compared to the salary of a 20+ year teacher (and I say this as a 12th year teacher, so I have nothing to gain personally). Currently, a third year teacher with a masters degree makes $60,665 per year compared to the $105,224 salary for a 19th year teacher. The difference of almost $45,000 does not come with additional responsibilities or duties. Given the extreme teacher shortage, there should be a focused incentive to attract new teachers into the field. MCPS should examine a way to evaluate life experiences and factor that information into the salary scale. Examples include someone who has 10 years experience as a paraeducator, or someone who may have taught for a few years and then became a stay at home parent for five years, or someone who has been a private preschool teacher for eight years. Given they meet the educational requirements and have (or are working towards) certification, why is their experience not valued and taken into consideration on the salary scale? I’m not advocating to lower the salary of a teacher with 20 years plus experience but I think the salary disparity should be examined. Especially considering the additional certification requirements for new teachers mandated by the MSDE Blueprint for Learning (2025), I don’t see how anyone interested in changing careers would be motivated to become a teacher. Teachers should be compensated for experience but experience does not always directly correlate with increased effectiveness. I know of several teachers with 25+ years of experience who are phenomenal, but there are equal if not greater number of 25+ year teachers I personally would not want as my child’s teacher.

I am in full agreement that teachers should be evaluated on effectiveness and should receive monetary compensation but the issue is complicated and multifaceted. In true MCPS fashion, there would likely be a five year study dedicated to pursuing this idea with multiple new central office positions created. Meanwhile, teachers continue to leave the field and seek out alternative careers at an alarming rate. [/quote]

You’re only comparing the salaries of teachers with experience exclusively in MCPS. 20 year veteran teachers that moved to MCPS aren’t making that. I have 20 years experience and I’m only getting paid for 8 years of experience because of the stupid entry level cap in MCPS. [/quote]

Fully agree and should have also included that in my post. MCPS should take this into consideration when thinking how to attract teachers to the county. [/quote]

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