In the coming legislative session, some have suggested that the state of Georgia implement a number of changes to educational funding. One of particular importance is teacher merit pay.
First, it is important to know my wife is a Fayette County teacher at Sandy Creek High School. She has over 20 years classroom experience, as do a great number of our Fayette County teachers. The latest State Department of Education statistics show that our frontline teacher work force is both above average in experience and in the acquisition of advanced degrees.
I am certain that the experience and knowledge of our teachers has greatly contributed to our students and schools with their annual top-tier performance against other systems in Georgia as well as nationally.
While the General Assembly continues to shift the burden of educational funding to the local systems, disregarding their constitutional requirement for the state to fund Quality Basic Education, it also imposes additional regulations, requirements and testing without the resources to properly implement these in our classrooms, leaving our teachers overworked, under-supported, and drowning in new paperwork.
Some in the legislature now suggest the answer to Georgia’s weak academic standing is to implement a merit pay system to reward those teachers who produce “improvement and results.” Under a commonly understood definition of these words, I would suggest our teachers past performance has earned a great bonus based on the years of top 10 results the teachers, students, administrators, and parents have produced in our quality Fayette County public schools.
Instead, we have had to cut our teachers’ pay and used furlough days to offset funds earned but not provided by the state of Georgia just to keep the schools operating.
Student results are not just a result of teacher effort, but also includes student aptitude and effort, as well as parental support and involvement. A teacher can deliver great lessons and use a variety of techniques to reach the students but scholastic achievement is a team game. How can teacher pay be tied to that?
Over a five-year period the results for standardized testing, while well above state average, has risen and fallen in each and every high school in our county. Each class year of students is a different batch of abilities and interests and not identical and interchangeable widgets that produce predictable and consistent results.
In the end, this experimental idea risks the very soul of our high-performing Fayette County public schools based on untested theories and trendy buzz words. We need a real plan to compensate our teachers that rewards them for their great achievements and a strategy to improve our schools that incorporates the entire team of teachers, students, administrators and parents.
Please take this opportunity to contact our Fayette delegation at the below emails and ask them to represent us and send the experts back to the drawing board to develop a plan to pay those who educate the children of Georgia and treat them with both the dignity and respect they well deserve:
Money alone doesn’t guarantee performance, but overcrowded classrooms with overworked and underpaid teachers will not provide the results we desire.
Neil Sullivan
Peachtree City, Ga.
