Frankly, I don’t know if she would choose to retire now if the legislature passed what is being billed as a one-time incentive. I know that she would think about it. Financially, it would seem to make a lot of sense. Her income, eventually combined with Social Security, would be barely less than she makes working full-time.
What I do know is that it would be a loss to her school district. My wife has devoted herself to teaching, largely to the exclusion of anything else, for more than thirty years. She is a superb teacher, and that is not a subjective statement. She received the prestigious Gilder-Lehrman award as top history teacher in the state last year. She was also third runner-up for top history teacher in the nation, and won an award this year as the best history teacher in Michigan from the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Her students regularly score higher than any others in her district on placement exams, and people in all walks of life have told me that her letters of recommendation have been a major factor in getting them into the University of Michigan or Princeton or Harvard.
Nor is she alone in terms of dedication to what she does. Now -- do these folks deserve sweetened pensions? Certainly they do, and the fact that this would help state finances right now would seem to make passing this a no-brainer. It would also create jobs for the many teachers in the state who can’t find them.
But there is still something that bothers me about all this. If my wife retires, as she undoubtedly will, and should, someday, she is likely to be replaced by a 24-year-old recent graduate. Is this person going to know as much about history or teaching as my wife does?
Certainly not. They may be a bundle of energy, and I know very well that the rhythm of life means that sooner or later, we all must and should be replaced. (Except for me, of course.)
However, if our school districts lose a higher percentage of their most experienced teachers all at once, it’s hard not to believe that they are going to be intellectually and academically weakened.
To me, it would make sense to try and keep some of these folks on as master teachers or curriculum specialists, or something.
Most of us have had our lives altered by a good teacher at some point. That doesn’t mean the present proposal is a bad idea. It does mean that we ought to think of education as something more than one more cost center in a badly out-of-balance state budget.
You're assuming here that tenure and teaching performance are highly correlated. While I'm now eight years out of high school, in my experience, excellence and incompetence cut across all ages.
Yes, the school will be losing a very good teacher in your wife, but there also may be addition-by-subtraction elsewhere.
Posted by: Carl | January 30, 2009 at 02:45 PM
Great point Carl.
I think your exactly right about excellence being random, although certainly there is a tendency to accumulate some wisdom as you grow older. But the tenure system protects both wisdom and entrenched incompetence, and the MEA has resisted positive reforms like merit pay, etc., to the point of refusing to recognize even the tiniest amounts of pay differentials. Jack's wife, according to the evidence he's presented, would make even more money under a merit pay system and have less incentive to take the incentive program (while those not as meritorious and therefore not rewarded as much would have more incentive), and the world and system could have its cake and eat it too.
I suspect that after this buyout occurs, the "best" that do take it will come back in "subcontract" capacities. That's fine - they should be paid as subcontractors outside the union and retirement system (which they are already vested into) and that will represent a savings to the school and opportunity to make extra dollars for the veteran teacher-now-advisor. Retired Superintendents often do this or do it by becoming a short-term fill-in super when districts transition for other reasons. Indeed, that's a best of both worlds solution. There should be enabling legislation (the MEA may resist it already) if its not possible, and this type of subcontracting to semi-retired teachers could be a valuable tool for the next generation of school budgetings.
And that wouldn't require attacking the fundamental existence of the union or rights of teachers to lobby for fair pay. But fair pay depends on fair results and systemwide the public isn't getting that. I understand that there are difficulties in measuring performance particularly across district and for "harder" students, etc., but the best minds in the teaching world should be able to sit down and work out professional benchmarks and standards to reward if they decide its a worthy goal. I wouldn't care if the MEA were primarily the devil designing the details, as long as it agreed to the principle.
Tenure - if it is to continue to exist - needs to also be flexible enough to accommodate for quick removal of the admittedly very rare bad apples like sexual abusers who teach, etc. But last year the MEA spent a $150,000 in legal fees defending, and then protecting the right of the files to be secret, of an abuser. I mean - once the MEA learned the truth, it was time to let the world know (so the guy wouldn't end up at another school). I wouldn't hold an organization responsible for the rare sick individual that worms his way into it - unless the organization lacks the common-sense to know when to let go.
Posted by: Chetly Zarko | January 30, 2009 at 04:33 PM