Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's pay proposal

If only OPS would try SOMETHING like this.

Pay Dispute Continues as Classes Near D.C. Teachers Split Along Age Lines
Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's pay proposal is the key to her school overhaul. (By Susan Walsh -- Associated Press)

By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 14, 2008; Page B01

Less than two weeks before classes begin, many of the District's 4,000 public school teachers are locked in a heated debate over Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's proposal to offer salaries exceeding $100,000 for those willing to give up job security and tie their fates to student achievement.

The rift is playing out in a blizzard of cellphone messages and e-mails, Facebook entries and posts on teacher blogs such as D.C. Teacher Chic and Dee Does the District.

Some of the teachers who want "green tier" salaries plan to demonstrate this morning at teacher union offices on L'Enfant Plaza.

The split in the teaching corps largely, but not exclusively, is occurring along generational lines, with younger teachers more willing to accept the risks and older ones often questioning the proposal.
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Jerome Brocks, a special education teacher with 34 years of experience in D.C. schools, seethes when he talks about Rhee's salary proposal.

"It's degrading and insulting," said Brocks, to ask that teachers give up tenure and go on probation for a year if they choose the more lucrative of the two salary tiers under the plan, which is at the center of contract negotiations between the city and the Washington Teachers' Union.

He said that Rhee wants only to purge older teachers and that for instructors to sell out hard-won protections against arbitrary or unfair dismissal is unthinkable.

"For Michelle Rhee or anyone to ask that is like Judas and 30 pieces of silver," Brocks, 59, said.

Julia Rosen, putting her classroom in order this week for her third year as a second grade teacher at Key Elementary School, said she would have no problem with a system in which her pay, and maybe her job, was tied to her students' academic growth.

"At this school, I think any of us could excel in that kind of a scenario," Rosen, 25, said.

The proposal is the linchpin of the chancellor's quest to overhaul public education in the District, a way to attract and retain high-quality instructors who would be held accountable for growth in student achievement. It would make them among the nation's best-paid public school instructors, enabling those with just five years of experience to make more than $100,000 in salary and bonuses.

Under the proposal, teachers who want to accept lower, but still significant, pay increases can keep the job security that comes with tenure. Those opting for top salaries, however, relinquish that protection. Those coming into the D.C. system would be required to enter the so-called "green" plan.

Supporters of the plan are pushing union President George Parker to bring the plan to a vote of the membership. Parker said he has serious reservations about the probation requirement and wants it changed before a contract is finalized.
"I'm secure with my teaching practices and my pedagogy," said Susan Breipohl, 30, who teaches pre-kindergarten and kindergarten at Peabody Early Childhood Center's School Within a School. "I know that even if the growth of my students was questioned, I feel I would have enough data and anecdotal data to back it up."

More seasoned teachers, who have seen years of dysfunction and political turmoil in the school system, are deeply leery of placing their employment in the hands of a principal or other administrator who might have a personal score to settle.

Rhee says there will be an appeals process, but Parker wants contract language promising that the appeals will be expeditious -- and heard by "a neutral party."

Sarah Callaway, 59, a District teacher for 13 years who works with English language learners at Horace Mann Elementary School, said she understands and agrees with Rhee's objectives.
"All of us know there needs to be a certain amount of weeding out. She has the right idea, to be aggressive and get new blood," Callaway said.

But the big-money-for-tenure option "forbodes too much control" for administrators, she said.

Younger teachers have expressed bewilderment about their older colleagues.

"Why is it that the veterans seem to be the most against rewarding teachers for improved test scores?" asked "Toby" in a post on D.C. Teacher Chic. "Shouldn't those new to the field feel the most threatened by such a proposal?"

One sentiment that seems to bridge the generational divide: The teachers union has done a dismal job in responding to concerns and questions about the plan.
"You don't respond to emails, your voice mail is full, the website is not updated and you release no statements to let teachers know where we are in this negotiations process," Breipohl wrote to Parker yesterday.

Some said Rhee, a prolific text-messager, has been far more responsive.

"Pardon my ignorance, but why is the Chancellor able to e-mail me back with a multiple sentence response, but George Parker cannot send a one-word reply?" asked "Dee," author of Dee Does the District, who identifies herself as a first-year special education teacher.

Parker said he is trying to keep up with what he described as an enormous volume of calls and messages.

"The numbers have just made it impossible to respond in a timely manner and carry on the day-to-day operations of the union," he said.