Speculating a Gold Rush

I am not sure I want to read the newspaper anymore. I used to think it was a great place to find out what was happening in the world, and see what people were thinking. Well... I am not sure I want to know what people are thinking anymore.

At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all pipsqueak, I found myself (again) befuddled by a story in the Seattle Times. Two things bothered me in particular:

1. They had spoken with a teacher protesting in front of Seattle Public Schools HQ. At the time of the RIF, around the 10th of May, he said: "I wish they could have waited a little longer, to see if they could find the money," Jarosz told me then.

2. "They say stimulus money, but they don't tell you how much. And did they know about it before? You go through a lot of stress when you lose your job. Was it all really necessary?" To which Nicole Brodeur chimed in I wondered the same thing.

I am not a fan of RIF's/Layoffs/Job Losses. It is awful for all parties involved, and if I had graduated last year I would likely be in the RIF pool. If I get a job this summer, then I may find myself in that same position next May 15th. But this was something the district needed to do, for two reasons:
1) it is a state mandated deadline that they need to notify people of RIF's. There's no waiting, no "maaaaaybe if" scenarios.
2) you can't speculate on the money you will get. They didn't have the stimulus money, so they needed to RIF. You can assume you have certain pools of money, but you don't really know until it has been allocated.

I get the notion that the man was upset. I can't imagine losing my job via RIF, but I have lived through my wife having her contract non-renewed due to budget issues. It makes for a stressful time! But yes, it was necessary. The district doesn't want to create stress. As a journalist (or columnist), Nicole Brodeur needs to a bit more research. It was an issue of timing and budgeting. Maybe there are guidelines that the school board and superintendent could have followed regarding budgeting. I don't know, and I would imagine Brodeur doesn't either.

Application Happy

Now is not the best time to be completing teacher certification. Many districts have RIF'd (laid off), and jobs just aren't there to submit applications for. Nonetheless I continue to put all my stuff together, and get my ducks in a row prior to the start of summer. Summer brings uncertainty, as everyone scatters- not good for references etc.

In Seattle, like many places, there are people and organizations that are upset by how the layoffs are being done. I get that the purpose of the union is to protect teachers. Without a union, the oldest would likely be skimmed off the pool as they are the most costly (although my guess would be that it might be publicized as a skill-set issue, not purely economic). What kills me, particularly as someone that is applying now (with ZERO seniority), is that the bottom of the totem pole continually gets chopped off. I am not sure what is worse: A) being cut simply based on time worked, or B) having a job based on time worked (not because of skills).

While I see merit pay as having flaws, there needs to be a better way than is currently being used. I also truly believe that the people who need to worry most about merit pay are those that have holes in their practice. What other assessment is there of our teaching practice? Principals do evaluations, but in many cases it takes a preponderance of evidence to remove bad teachers. How else can we ensure that we are providing great instruction... and not a set of instructions?