Questions about Professional Competency=Professional Compensation

1.  What do you have to do to stay at a level?  A teacher enters with a certain number of proven competencies.    What happens if the teacher 

           a) decides to ‘coast’?  For example:  A teacher gets to the 3rd year of level 1 and has a great year.  She has a very good mix of students/colleagues/materials.  Her home life is so smooth that she can devote time to doing more for her students and ‘going the extra mile’ for her colleagues and school.  She takes courses, offers staff development, offers to be a mentor to new teachers... The perfect teacher.

           She gets passed to Level 2 and ‘something happens’.  It might be personal or it might be a professional conflict.  She decides to coast and not do anything extra for the year.  She feels she needs to be selfish with her time, resources and her contact with colleagues.  She assures everyone that she is fine.  She just needs time. (This is soooo female!) After a year of being selfish, her situation straightens out and she could begin to be more of a leader/mentor/ helper in her school but she decides that she prefers to use the time to learn quilting or to play bingo.  She’s comfortable with level 2 pay but she is not demonstrating level 2 competencies such as (professional effectiveness competencies)

  -take leadership roles in school activities

  -actively participate in additional higher education course work

  -develop and maintain rapport with colleagues

  -provide mentoring/guidance to new teachers

 Does she stay at level 2?  Who makes  the decision?

           b)  What if a level 4 teacher has backed out of all extra activities except daily teaching because of a medical problem?  For example:  An exemplary teacher has been diagnosed as clinically depressed.  She teaches and does a good job with her students but doesn’t have the energy to do anything other than her teaching duties.  She drops all her mentoring/leadership  and professional development activities and just teaches.  The doctor says that she should be back to normal in a year or two if she continues with the medication and therapy.  Does she stay at the high level even though she is doing level 1 work?  Who makes the decision?

2.  What happens to the high level (level 3 or 4) doubly certified teacher who changes fields?  Does she begin over to demonstrate competencies which are particular to that new field?  Or does she stay at the higher compensation level even though she is demonstrating level 1 competencies?  For example, what if an elementary reading teacher who is also certified in K-12 Technology, takes a job as a technology teacher in a high school.  In the elementary school she was able to shine and perform as a mentor/teacher trainer/leader because she had years of experience at her grade level and had been an active professional both in the building and in her field.  She felt she needed a change.  She had had certification in both fields for years but had not taught technology.  In fact, she had not even used much technology in the classroom.  She had not kept up with the field other than what she got in staff development workshops at her school.  Now she is entering a new teaching field for her and has no teaching experience in that field.  She assumes that she would stay at level 3 or 4 but would need to demonstrate professional effectiveness competencies, and instructional competencies more on the  second year or third year of level 1 for the first year or two. 

3.  What happens to the teacher who leaves the system and comes back?  Where does she fall in the system?

 For example:

              a) (based on my own case) What if a teacher has been in the system for 5 years and has reached level 4, when for reasons beyond her control she leaves the area (and public school teaching) for a long time (10 years).  She gets hired back by the system.  Where would she be put on this system of levels? 

              b)The system is desperate to get her back because of her reputation and success when she was there before.  Under the present system, the administration could offer her ‘a salary she couldn’t refuse’.  What flexibility would the new system offer to make sure that she chose them over neighboring systems which also want to hire her? 

              c) This same teacher who left and came back is doubly certified.  She taught one subject before she left but she wants to be hired for her other subject which she has never taught (see example 2 above).  Would the system have any flexibility in hiring an excellent teacher but one who is inexperienced in the field she would be teaching?

             High mobility in this area is something that this system must address.  The teaching profession is one of frequent moves since many teachers are women who follow where their man leads.  It is also a mobile profession because many teachers are young and just out of college.  They haven’t decided where they want to settle and so they start out in square one-- where they graduated, or where their parents live, or  where their boyfriend is living... and then for the same non-profession based reason, move to a new place and then possibly back again to square one.  How does this system account for comers and goers?

4.  Should there be a time limit for certain levels after level 1?  For example, a teacher who gets to level 2 and then decides to coast (or ‘camp’ as one article called it) is not demonstrating the spirit of the system.  Her ‘I am where I want to be’ attitude could be discouraging for those who work with her.  In the Dept. of State Foreign Service, there is a time limit called “time in class (TIC)” and people TIC out after 15 years in a level.  And they are given a certain time limit to get to the highest, non-Senior  level before they have to retire.  Should there be a level which is the ‘goal’ for teachers to reach and if they don’t reach it in a generous number of years, they would have to retire?

5.  How does this system handle job sharing?  What if two teachers decide to share one position?  (As I see it, the salary goes with the demonstrated competencies rather than the position so this wouldn’t be a point) (just thought I’d leave it in in case someone else can see a problem with job sharing other than morale if one person is a level 1 and the other a level 3 or 4)

6.  Who decides?  How can the movement between steps (or up steps) be objective?  How can the personal or subjective element be removed in decisions about who moves up a step and when they should move?  Who decides that someone should be removed from a level because the once demonstrated competencies are no longer there?  Who initiates the procedure to get a teacher removed from a level if that teacher is no longer performing at high standards?

              When looking at evaluation systems for teachers, not many come to mind.  And no system which is objective comes to mind except a standardized test.  But tests don’t show what the levels require to be demonstrated.  What about an evaluation questionnaire which gives points for certain competencies?  In the description of the levels,  the descriptor: “met or exceeded all competencies for level...” appears.   Maybe it should read,  “met or exceeded MOST of the competencies” and then have a checklist.  Each item would have a point balance, and in order to move, the teacher would have to get above a certain percentage of points.  But the competencies would be broad competencies like the ones in our plan rather than specific activities. 

               In Alexandria ‘recertification’ points are earned by performing or attending specific professional activities.  Under Alexandria’s system, each activity carries a specific number of points.  The points are documented by the teacher and presented at the end of a specific time frame to see whether there are enough points for renewal of their teaching certificate.  That system could be borrowed from and  expanded to the other areas of demonstrated competencies and then the total in each area could be put into a percentage.  A certain percentage over a certain time frame would mean promotion to the next level.

 (As you can see, I have not completed any of the research courses so my terminology is very basic!)