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Hello, colleagues. I’m
proud to report that we’ve done it again. We’ve derailed, or at
least delayed, another fast-moving train that was heading straight
toward us. Last week at the State Board of Education meeting, we
succeeded in sidetracking DEED Commissioner Roger Sampson’s proposed
new performance-based licensure plan.
The Board of Ed refused to
move forward with Sampson’s hastily devised new plan, and instead
sent it back to DEED for more work. Congratulations and a big
thank-you to a handful of our members whom we asked to take the lead
in making this happen: Lucy Hope, Rita Davis, Cindy Trawicki and
Rich Kronberg.
The four offered eloquent
testimony that highlighted all the unanswered questions and concerns
surrounding Sampson’s proposal. NEA-Alaska does not oppose
performance-based licensure per se. But we insist that the
important process questions be answered before the plan goes out for
public hearing: Who will pay, and how much? How will we ensure
objectivity and fairness? And how the new plan would impact
Alaska’s ability to attract and retain quality educators?
Lucy pointed out in her
testimony that “true measures of performance are not a snapshot in
time. Our evaluation system requires 4-8 performance-based
observations of teachers per year during their first three years of
employment. Any performance-based rubric assessment of teaching
belongs in the district, over time, not at the state level, once
every few years.”
Rich asked the board
rhetorically: “Why would teachers from other states… and I am
talking about 70% of our teachers… go through this complex system,
work for compensation that is not competitive with many other
states, give up the bulk of any earned Social Security benefit they
may have, in order to die at their desks because they can’t afford
to retire under an administration-proposed third tier in the Teacher
Retirement System? All of these disparate impacts combine to
seriously diminish our desirability as a place for teachers to make
their careers just when other states are working feverishly to
become more competitive.”
Well done, Lucy and Rich and
Rita and Cindy!
You’ll recall that our
earlier victory came about a week before this crucial Board of Ed
meeting, this time in the PERS/TRS retirement arena. We succeeded
in preventing favorable reports from the PERS and TRS Boards
regarding the administration-proposed new tiers that would gut our
hard-won retirement benefits
December 2004 |
