First Teaching Position - From Peer Review, to Thoughts on Merit Pay

Peer Review and Peer Coaching

This seems to me like a very reasonable, realistic way to help newer teachers learn, and help veteran teachers improve their practice. I can't see much of a negative context for learning and getting constructive feedback from one's peers. 

As far as observing and rating performance goes, this again seems far more fair an approach than random administrative observations. Not only would teachers' peers seem more qualified to make judgments about performance, but as long as those individuals observing could be trusted to be honest in their review, it would seem like an incredibly more accurate method of observation as well.

I can say without a doubt that I would prefer to be observed and evaluated according to this method, as I feel that I would receive far more meaningful feedback that extends beyond a simple cookie-cutter response of "X is scored 2 or 3 out of 4, so this category of the rubric can still be improved."

Job Searching

From My experience using the search tools, the internet seems like a fine place for checking what sorts of jobs are available in the teaching field. All the same, I think that I would rather follow through with the actual application process by travelling to the places that I find, and filling out an application to hand in in-person. This not only allows me to better acquaint myself with the administration in the location of a prospective job, but also allows me to see a bit of what it is actually like there -- something that is difficult to tell from the other side of a computer screen.

Both the Education World and Finding Teaching Opportunities links were quite useful as job searches, however, many of the others either turned up pages with errors, or had further links to other sites for job searches of which I wasn't sure if I should trust.

The NBPTS: Latest Developments and Future Plans

The organization is currently making their ATLAS online library available, as well as promoting teacher leadership growth, in an effort to help teachers expand their horizons and better themselves, that their students might benefit from their teachers' growth as well. The Group works to provide schools with teachers who are better prepared, more experienced, and are more capable leaders, all through their provided resources and certification process.

NBPTS spells out in their "Get Certified" section what the worth of their certification is to teachers, students and parents, and schools and administration. It is a degree that really has no drawbacks to it, even to the point where a teacher working in a school could possibly get financial help from the school/district to pay for the fees required. It's an additional proof of a level of proficiency and competence that everyone, from teachers, to administration, to parents and students want to see more teachers have.

This seems like a great goal for the future to me. I would like to become NBPTS certified at some point later in my career when I have more experience, and have established myself. At such a point, I will be able to set aside the necessary time to complete this process, as well as have the background experience to properly benefit from it.


On Merit Pay

This quote alone, from the ERIC article on merit pay for teachers, describes exactly why such a system won't work for the teaching profession:

"Failure of merit pay normally results from ambiguous or inconsistent standards, remote or authoritarian planning, or arbitrary award determinations (all of which engender teacher opposition) or from unforeseen administrative complexities and budget limitations."


Everything stated about why merit pay fails in many areas precisely describes the teaching field and its ties with school administration. This is an accurate overlap to the point of where, if I removed the words "Failure of merit pay normally results from," and replaced them with, "As a warning, entering the teaching profession means you will be confronted with," the statement would be perfectly true. What's worse, this is such a well known fact in many school districts, that even the students there would look at such a statement and confirm the truth of it. If it is so obvious though, then why is it that there are actually people trying to make such a terrible idea a reality?That being said, I oppose the merit pay system with respect to the teaching profession in the more traditional way that it would likely be implemented. If in a position such as Mr. Roper-Batker from the New York Times article, I would likely begin by taking the same stance as him -- guardedly joining in, in order to expose any shortcomings and failures of the system, in order to have it immediately removed. The only way such a thing could genuinely work is through the way that it has in the few places that were mentioned to have great success in the article - through cooperation with the teachers themselves, and direction from them as to what criteria are appropriate. Still, I oppose the idea vehemently if for no other reason than that I don't believe increased pay will call better teachers to the profession, and I feel that such systems serve more to create rifts between colleagues where I commonly see great camaraderie that helps them improve themselves and one another. On one last contradictory side note however, I would like to see some sort of incentivization to help lower-budget urban and inner-city schools appeal more to the veteran teachers that can make the most difference in such locations. The higher difficulty and comparably lower pay of teaching in such locations tends to push away the people who could make the most difference there, and it would be nice to see something put in place to turn that trend around.