Teachers like Gates grant coaching, wary of reviews

Teachers like a plan to reward them with faster pay hikes, but they are concerned about evaluations that force them to undergo review by a colleague.

How can someone with less experience pass judgment on a veteran teacher?

These are some of the highlights of a wide-ranging discussion among four Hillsborough school district educators who would feel, to varying degrees, the impact of a historic $100 million grant to the district from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The foundation argues teachers are key to a successful school, so the money is targeted at teacher improvement. Our teacher panel agreed. But members - one in his second year as an instructor, another in her 37th - quickly pointed out they can't do it alone.

Education starts in the home, by example, they said. Get children to school on time. Read to them. Talk to them. Parents are a child's first teachers.

Paying teachers more and sooner will help recruit and retain good ones, most agreed. But some found "pay for performance" demeaning. Why base my pay on student test scores? Don't students bear a responsibility for the results, too?

And teachers aren't missionaries. They deserve a living wage, commensurate with the importance of their work. They're not just women earning extra money in two-parent families any more. Some are men, some single parents, many primary breadwinners.

This group is worried about the unknowns that come with the Gates grant, but all agreed: Education needs a revolution. Let it begin here, they say, in Hillsborough County.

Here are the teachers, followed by excerpts from the conversation:

Donna Violette: 37-year educator, third-grade teacher at Wimauma Elementary
Reza Razavi: 10-year educator, teaches economics and history at Wharton High
Janet Caraballo: 32-year educator, third-grade math and science teacher, B.C. Graham Elementary
Kevin Jacobs: Second-year educator, fourth-grade math and science teacher, B.C. Graham Elementary

Q. The Gates foundation and district leaders say teachers are the most important factors in a successful school. Do you agree?

Reza Razavi: "I think it's a component. We need great teachers in the classroom. I think, also, effective parenting is equally as important. ... Unfortunately, we have an issue, and I think it's interesting we're talking about effective teachers' initiative. That's a Band-Aid. We need to have a revolution in education."

Donna Violette: "You can be the best teacher in the world, but if the child doesn't want to open the book or doesn't get to school until 10 o'clock and by then reading is over - or not over, but the reading instruction period is over - they're missing out on a lot."

Janet Caraballo: "I think a good education is like a three-legged stool. It is the teacher. It is the parent. And it's also the student. The student has to understand that they are in control of their learning."

Q. What do teachers need in the classroom to do their jobs better? Will this program address those needs?

Violette: "I think parts of it are excellent, like the beginning teacher getting more support, getting more mentoring. I think that's going to allow a lot of people to stay in the classroom to become better teachers that maybe would leave the profession without that support."

Caraballo: "I think technique, I think skill, are all important. But I also think there's something teachers have that doesn't necessarily lend itself to data gathering. And now we're looking to bring in a peer - coaches, because I think that's really a better way of looking at the people who are going to be coming in to look at me as a teacher. There's going to be some discussion, and I think that's important. And I also think that's threatening."

Kevin Jacobs: "One thing about it that's a little discouraging ... I'm working on my master's right now, and a big motivation for me for getting started on that was because that would increase my pay, but now, now that will not. So I would expect ... probably less teachers in the future would work toward their master's."

Q. What do you think about the possibility of teachers with, say, five years experience having the potential to earn as much as teachers with 20 years if pay is based on performance?

Jacobs: "I think probably the best way to describe it - exciting. It kind of puts me more in control. Rather than having to wait 20 years, you know, it's going to motivate me to really work. It's a good opportunity for us young teachers."

Caraballo: "I do have concerns about performance pay. I find that very dehumanizing that I can do something and make another human being perform. I find that offensive. I can use my skills, certainly, to enhance, but I do take offense to that. But I also know that I provide a service and therefore this service has to be evaluated some way."

Jacobs: "One concern, you know, working in a school with low-economic children - is that going to make it more difficult for me to get performance pay or is it going to make it easier for me to get performance pay? Is it going to be consistent for, you know, all teachers no matter what their school population is?"

Q. Do rules you already work under - Sunshine State Standards, FCAT, MAP among them - allow for effective teaching? Do you feel your hands are tied? How does this new plan affect that?

Caraballo: "I think taxpayers pay us to help with ... citizenship, and ... I'm not sure that that's our focus anymore. Or if it's just doing what we need to do because we can collect data."

Jacobs: "There's a lot that really needs to be considered to make sure that it is fair for the teachers and that we are still trying to educate the whole child and not just improve their test scores."

Q. The No. 1 goal is student achievement. What's the best way to measure this? Do we have it down yet?

Violette: "No, no, we are not close having it down now. Not close. There are so many things that go into it, and what I teach them this year in third grade, that may come into play in ninth grade. They may not really effectively use it before then. ... Do you instill the love of learning if learning is to pass a test?"

Caraballo: "We need to look at the gain. Are we making the curriculum too narrow? I'm concerned. ... I'm concerned that we might be killing that love for learning."

Razavi: "The thought process is everybody has to be college ready and to go college. What happens to those students that ... can do other things, that they're great mechanics, that they're great electricians? We've pretty much shut down all of these programs. As a result, we have this huge population that we're just pushing forward."

Q. How do you feel about being assigned a peer evaluator or mentor? Is this role the best use of our best teachers?

Violette: "I think there are going to be more senior teachers who are going to resent having this person coming into their classroom. Personally, I don't. I don't think we need to be threatened by anyone coming into our classroom and watching what's happening."

Caraballo: "If they're a coach and a help, I think there are no limits to what can happen. Coaching is the way we need to think about it because before you can coach, you need to evaluate. So the evaluation is a part of it, but it's not the main part."

Razavi: "I think that if it's less threatening. If we're going into classrooms not from an evaluator - I know they're saying 30 percent of the evaluation comes from that ... If that fear doesn't exist, you are going into the classroom to share techniques, that's great."

Jacobs: "I think it would be great if after like 10 years of teaching - I teach fourth grade - look at what young teachers are doing. The field does change. And then go back and implement what I saw in the two to three years that I was traveling from class to class. So if I was 30, I think this would be a really good opportunity for me."

Caraballo: "The idea of being evaluated - how do I feel about that? I'm scared because I don't know what the evaluation is. Nobody does. So I have to say to myself ... 'It's okay to be uncomfortable with it.' But we're also on the cutting edge, and this is the time for us teachers to speak up."