Oregon School Refuses Federal Grant for Merit Pay

"Oregon City School District walks away from $2.54 million grant for performance pay" by Nicole Dungca

"Merit" is in the eye of the beholder; administrators and counselors have different views about who is successful, too often with limited information and biased perspectives.

At the end of a loooong year in an Oregon public high school, an appreciative assistant principal came into my empty classroom and surpised me by thanking me for my work and mentioning, without preface, that $750 had been added to my pay to "take a class."

Similarly--but earlier in my tenure, near the end of my first year at a middle school in the same district (Beaverton), someone from the union got me $20 bucks an hour for 50 hours that I had not sought for a lot of extra time I had spent on theater projects.

In those same time periods, other administrators were actively seeking ways to fire me...and were eventually successful.  Whacky world, public ed.

Oregon City seems to have a proper union advocate in Ms. Noice (not all of us have). She's out there on-the-record and seems to understand, cogently, that until a system is in place to evaluate teachers honestly and efficiently, we should guard against abuse by patronage administrators dishing out gratuities.

www.teachingintheshadowoftheswoosh.blogspot.com

DAN WIEDEN OF WIEDEN + KENNEDY ("JUST DO IT") VISITS A WESTVIEW HIGH SCHOOL MEDIA CLASS