This week the North Carolina Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (NCACTE) released a position statement on the controversial Pathways to Excellence proposal.
It’s highly worth your time to read in its entirety.
NCACTE noted many problems with the proposal, including
➣ The lack of legislative authority of the Human Capital Roundtable and the Southern Regional Education Board to engage in drafting official policy
➣ The absence of teachers, district Human Resources directors, and university-based staff at the crucial early stages of development
➣ The inability of PEPSC subcommittees to make necessary changes to the proposal
➣ The overly complex and burdensome nature of the plan
➣ The lack of annual teacher salary increases
➣ The emphasis on alternative entry as “the future of teacher preparation”
NCACTE offered a series of five recommendations that it believes can help to salvage a proposal which has proven deeply unpopular with North Carolina’s educators, including the need to “engage educational stakeholders as partners, not obstacles.”
You can read NCACTE’s entire position statement below:
The proposal basically states that my college diploma means nothing and I can have my license removed at any time if I do not fit the requirements. The EVAAS, peer revaluation, student scores and surveys will be determining your raise and continuance. So if a principal or students don’t like you, you are screwed. Only 25% will even be eligible for the raise. This will promote favoritism enormously. Leave the system alone. Merit pay has never worked.
I am horrified at all that I have read here. Teaching has become a devalued an unappreciated profession in this state. Coming from NY, I was proud of my well respected and compensated professional that valued its teachers as much as it’s students. I wanted to move closer to family and NC is a beautiful state! The state is still beautiful, but all of this underhanded and sneaky “push through” policy to disrespect teaching is disgusting. The amount of rigorous training, education and testing that we as educators have to complete to prove our “qualifications and effectiveness” is no longer valued, compensated or required, I guess anyone can do this job and our students will learn “eventually”. Shame!
In your other articles, you’ve implored your readers to follow the money. Why not in this case? Of course the NCACTE has a vested financial interest in requiring potential educators to pay tuition to their programs (or have the state pay it for them, but the tuition money still flows to the university’s coffers). Most education programs are havens for low performing students (ask any professor who teaches general requirement classes, and you’ll find a strong theme that their worst students are often education majors). Do you really think an education in education at a degree mill like Wingate is subpar to micro-credentials? I think we should focus on getting bright, educated people with a passion for learning and teaching. If this means going outside of the renowned institutions like Wingate, Lenoir Rhyne, Montreat, etc., so be it. Now, unless the profession pays more, few people are going to do this anyway. But of course, most of the readers of this blog don’t want to pay for good teaching either – they want to continue to reward years of chair-sitting.