Top LYS Tweets From the Week of August 24, 2014

A number of you in the LYS Nation are now Twitter users.  If you haven’t done so yet, we want you to join us.  To let you see what you are missing, here are the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of August 24, 2014.

1. "The Court further finds that the Legislature has failed to meet its constitutional duty to suitably provide for Texas public schools... ...because the school finance system is structured, operated, and funded so that it cannot provide a constitutionally adequate education" (By @MoakCasey)

2. "Sure, America believes in education: the average teacher earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole day." (By @DrRichAllen)

3. Be aware of the teacher-talking and student-talking ratio in class. Those who do the talking tend to do the most learning. (By @justintarte)

4. If adults look to Internet to find answers they are resourceful; if kids do that, they are cheaters. (By @gcouros)

5. New PowerWalks format is awesome.  Enjoying the information tool.  Very helpful to new personnel. (By @coachwommack)

6. As late as 1992, written word was said to be dying. Internet resurrected essays (blogs), aphorisms (tweets), and letters (email). (By @pmarca)

7. Judge: Texas "has buried its head in the sand” while schools’ problems get worse (By @PatrickMichels)

8. You aren't a valuable member of a team if you never change your mind... (By @justintarte)

9. Looking forward to implementing Fundamental 5. (By @drjolly)

10. The number that's now officially in the rearview mirror, over 65,000 copies of The Fundamental 5 (Cain & Laird) sold! Thank you, LYS Nation! (By @LYSNation)

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote Presentation) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Reader Writes... The Astronomical Cost of Comp Time - Part 2

In response to the 6/19/2014 post, “The Astronomical Cost of Comp Time,” a LYS Principal writes:

SC,

Your post was right on. Love it!

And just so you know, we now have summer training stipend is our budget.

SC Response

Fantastic.  We all know if our teachers are to have any chance to keep up with advances in the field (hooray) and advances in punitive accountability (boo) then on-going training is not a want. It is a need.  We also know that for intensive and deep training, the summer is the best, if not only, time to provide this training.  But only a handful of districts adequately budget to provide training stipends.  The budget is the best indicator of district priority.  It’s not just enough to say teachers are the most critical employees in a school system. A little stipend at the right time goes along way to proving that sentiment.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote Presentation) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Reader Writes... The Astronomical Cost of Comp Time - Part 1

In response to the 6/19/2014 post, “The Astronomical Cost of Comp Time,” a LYS C/I Director writes:

SC,

I have to reply to your comp day example.  We use comp days to compensate staff for attending professional development in our district. This was the practice in the previous district I worked in as well. However, the comp days are designated on our calendar already.  So, instead of professional development during the year when teachers are busy and not focused, we have personalized professional development occur in the summer prior to the next year of instruction.

So, the cost is nothing for us except for the summer professional development costs.  The days they are off students are not in attendance and therefore instructional time isn't lost.

Just another scenario for your comp day time since you note it as the worst option.  I think in the scenario you provide it is possible, but in our comp time scenario, I disagree with it being the worst option.

SC Response

First, you and the district are to be commended for working to find a way to compensate staff for their off contract time spent on furthering the district’s mission.

And I appreciate that the days that teachers can use the comp time is predetermined by district calendar.  I too, did the same thing when I was in your position.  Teachers who attended extra summer training were able to take the entire Thanksgiving Week off, instead of just the last three days.

Seemingly a Win/Win.  But I wouldn’t do it now.  Now I would pay my teacher’s a stipend for off contract Summer Training and use the two days before Thanksgiving for on-going training, student staffings, team instructional planning and the like.  Are teachers distracted at that time of the year? Yes.  But as professionals, I would expect that given a meaningful task or activity the days could still be productive.

I just know that we talk team, we talk collaboration, and we talk on-going training.  But when we have opportunities to put that talk into practice, we have a lot of justifications for it just being talk.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote Presentation) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

I Predicted This One

Dateline Texas: Another teacher merit pay plan bites the dust.

Texas is canceling the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program and is shifting some of the funds to another incentive program. The TEEG program rewarded individual teachers at poor schools for individual performance. Surprisingly, to the State and the sponsoring politicians, the program was not successful.

Lead Your School Readers, I was there when this plan was hatched. When the project was assigned to TEA, I was called to give them my ideas on how to best implement the plan. Here’s what I told them:

1. The plan must award teams of teachers. When teachers are awarded individually, it quickly creates a “pie” mentality. If you get a piece of pie, then my piece of pie becomes smaller. In effect, this “pie” mentality reinforces teachers working in isolation, instead of breaking down the practice. Now, I have a financial incentive not to help other teachers. Instead, reward teams of teachers for reaching team goals. Now, I have an incentive to help my team, because if we lose – I lose.

2. The metrics must be based on the concept of value added. Otherwise, there is a disincentive to work with the most difficult students.

3. Get an expert to help craft the basic plan. Building an incentive plan is only easy at a surface level. There are lots of moving parts and it requires a lot of attention. Letting busy, but well-meaning amateurs create their own local plans from scratch is a recipe for disaster. As an aside, Ed Rogers, of the Penicle Group (www.peniclegroup.com) is an excellent resource if you are considering implementing an incentive pay plan.

By the time I finished point 3, it was obvious that they were irritated with my advice. So, I told them good luck and that I hoped that they would prove me wrong. After four years and $100 million, they didn’t.

In summary, I do think that the way that we approach compensation in education needs to be addressed. Raw experience should not be the sole determinant of salary. But, when people think that incentive plans can replace leadership and collaboration, failure is assured.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn…

Improving America's Schools - Letter 1, Part 3 (Professional Pay)

The following post is based on thoughts related to:


Letters to the editor that the NY Times has recently received concerning public schools. The link is: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/opinion/l17educ.html?emc=eta1

Jacqueline Ancess writes, “In education, research on performance pay shows no substantive gains in student achievement, and all Mr. Obama’s policy will do is reinforce the ill-conceived notion that low-level standardized tests are a valid measure of student achievement. Instead, pay teachers a salary that signals teaching as a profession.”

The above comment has three areas that I want to address, performance pay, measuring student achievement, and professional pay. I discussed performance pay and measuring student achievement in my previous posts. Now I will discuss professional pay.

Ms. Ancess does not believe that teachers are paid as professionals. I have to disagree. Teachers are paid as professionals. Starting salaries are competitive with the starting salaries of a number of professions in both the public and private sector. Obviously, things begin to change after the first couple of years, or do they? Teachers have traded income for security and fringe benefits. Even with districts laying off staff all over the country, right now teachers are at less risk of losing their job than people in other professions. Teacher retirement packages (we still have one) are safer than other professions. And teachers are generally less accountable for their personal performance than other professionals. The removal of these risks has a cost. As for fringe benefits, teachers enjoy more time off, more generous sick leave policies and fewer working hours than most professionals. These too have a cost.

So when you look at the total compensation package, teachers are not as bad off as we are lead to believe. You won’t get rich teaching, but were any of us called to this profession for the pay?

T.W.A – Your turn…