As the National Council on Teacher Quality writes, “Neither teachers’ unions nor state legislatures look upon tenure as an honor conferred upon a teacher who is found by some measure to be effective. In their view, tenure at the PK-12 level is a right that should be conferred to all employed teachers with a few years of satisfactory teaching experience.”
In the United States, the vast majority of public school teachers are compensated on a single salary scale. Although these scales are currently included in and reinforced by collective bargaining, such systems predate union contracts by several decades.
Teachers in U.S. classrooms are regularly evaluated, both when the teacher is probationary and when the teacher has been granted tenure. The terms of these evaluations, which are dictated by collective bargaining agreements, are based on process; they are not linked to teacher compensation and are almost never tied to student achievement.
Collective bargaining refers to the regular, district-level negotiations of teacher representatives (labor) and district representatives (management) regarding salary, working conditions, and terms of employment. The result is a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), commonly called a union contract that covers all teachers, whether or not they are union members.
In this first issue of 2011, we tackle teacher quality. Specifically, this edition focuses on key areas that are currently driving the teacher quality conversation at the national, state, and local levels: the role and impact of collective bargaining, teacher evaluations, teacher compensation, and teacher tenure.
This month's newsletter takes an in-depth look at teachers: teacher evaluations, teacher compensation, and teacher tenure.
In November, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The State Chamber of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition and others teamed up to host an Oklahoma City screening of the powerful documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman.’” And this month the presidents of the Oklahoma City, Tulsa and state chambers unveiled a joint agenda that includes proposals making it easier to get rid of bad teachers.
On Tuesday, January 11, U.S. Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue delivered the annual State of American Business address, highlighting the business community's priorities for growing the economy and putting millions of Americans back to work in the year ahead.
ICW's Caitlin Ward presented the Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility at the Aurora Chamber of Commerce's State of the Chamber breakfast on December 10th.
The U.S Chamber of Commerce's Institute for a Competitive Workforce issued a report calling on corporations and the business community to invest in early learning programs to bolster our nation's workforce development strategy. I'm a doctor, not a businessman. But that's my idea of a good investment.
The Institute for a Competitive Workforce will hold its annual education and workforce summit on September 17 & 18 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC. Details to come.
