It’s not always easy or comfortable to achieve.

Sniff sniff do I detect an enemy of public education?

If I were going to question the workings of PWC , I would start with why the PWC school board hired a superintendent who needed to bring 3 additional associate superintendents with him. The first 3 of those associate supers listed on the website came from Greece NY with the good superintendent. I bet they have a pretty big price tag also.

What happened to those people who used to head up those various categories? I am amazed that the school board ever approved bringing those people on board. Those imported people were just high ticket items.

Rather than suggesting a plan that has been bantered about for the past 50 years that is highly unmanageable in a school system you might want to determine if it works so well why aren’t all the private schools on such a pay for performance plan? I believe you will find that most districts are far more comfortable paying for seniority. Teachers can make additional money by assuming more responsibilities like sponsoring clubs, coaching, and running after school programs like night school, Saturday school etc.

Obviously, as you know better than most, the labor unions and the socialists perpetuate mediocrity…they never have in the past, nor will they ever in the future have any use for competition, the high achiever, or the “fast burner.”

Currently teachers and other school board employees receive raises according to seniority and COLA. That seems to be working most places in the country. Attempts to implement other types of ‘reward’ systems have not fared well.

A severe teacher shortage is on the horizon. It is already being felt in math, science, speech therapy, social studies, and yes, ESOL, and all special education. As baby boomers continue to retire, there are going to be fewer and fewer teachers to replace and those replacements will not be the same calibur who left.

Current plans that have worked in some areas are paying those with the critical shortage area endorsements more money. The old standard excuses for paying teachers miniumum salaries no longer work. And for the record, lousy teachers should be fired. The question is now though, who is replacing them. Last time I checked, substutue teachers were holding down the fort. The rigors of NCLB simply do not allow for non-certified teachers to be ‘finishing out the year,’ especially when the start date for the sub is November.

In response to your question, I care how they are paid simply because we can not afford to (nor should we) pay “top dollar” to EVERY teacher…but we CAN afford to pay top dollar to the best teachers. I fully support competitive pay; I do NOT support rewarding mediocrity equally with excellence.

Dolph, there is absolutely NO WAY that industry…regardless of how artsy or creative that industry might be…can remain competitive if they reward all employees equally. “Pay for Performance” is not new and it has been used widely. Is it easy to implement? No. Is it fun to explain why one person’s salary increase is lower? No. Is it always fair? No. My contention is that rewarding top performers equally with middle-of-the-road performers is not fair either.

In PWC, we have a Superintendent of Schools ($239K/yr) and one Deputy Superintendent and eight Assistant Superintendents (average $150K/year). If they can’t make that system work, without “creating friction and a situation that doesn’t foster sharing and collaboration,” it’s time we find someone who can.

A teacher who cannot accept, who creates friction, who doesn’t share and doesn’t collaborate would be ripe for a 0% increase next year…the increase they could have received would be better applied toward rewarding and retaining quality.

Easy? No. Fun? No. Effective? Definitely.

And you are aware that some of those figures change daily in a system the size of Prince William?

Now what is it you want me to check on?

Actually my numbers of state funding, ESOL costs, etc are accurate because I got them from Dave Cline. So he won’t have to waste time answering your questions, he can simply forward you the same info he sent me!

I seriously doubt that you know the exact numbers for the school system nor do I. Since I was speaking in generalities and stated that it was hearsay. I can do without the admonitions. Remember, it is only 20% of the esol population being discussed. My information came from an itinerate teacher who goes to elementary schools with low sol scores. I suppose he/she is as entitled to an opinion as you or I.

Dave Cline and other county employees have better things to do than sit around answering questions for people who don’t really have a need to know. The jury is still out on the savings. Regardless of how much bs is slung, I will take the wait and see approach.

“I heard today that many kids showed up around November who were not in the count. Their parents were afraid to send them to school. I asked how many and was told about 20%. ”

That is absolutely incorrect. There were very few students enrolled in November. Please email Dave Cline at the schools and ask for specifics before you repeat things like this. He is great about responding to requests and should be helpful. BTW, if 20% extra kids had shown in November, PWCS would have been mass chaos.

“Money follows kids and often is reimbursable.”

The state and fed money doesn’t come and go every day depending on where the child is. There are specific times of the year when enrollments are calculated. That is why parents receive those forms about being military, fed gov. employees, etc. The schools have to depend on parents to fill out those forms in a timely and correct fashion in order for the school to apply for and receive funding.

Each ESOL child costs between $2700 and $ 3100 (depending on what grade) to educate ON TOP of what it costs to educate a child with no special needs.

Of that $2700-$3100, the schools receive about $800 from the state and about $130 from the feds…these amounts include ALL the title fundings and special ed fundings. That is IT, we don’t get one dime more.

That means the remaining $1770 comes from PWC Taxpayers!

I would rather lose $800 & $130 and not have to pay the additional $1770, than to spend $1770 just to get $930.
On top of that you can add the regular amount to educate a child and what the state provides versus what the county has to pay. The taxpayers always pay way over half of that amount.

I understand economies of scale but it works in reverse as well. If 1 child leaves 1 school it doesn’t have a big effect because you still need a principal, teacher and a building, but if 20 children leave 1 school, it starts to have an effect. If only 1000 ESOL elementary students left and they were completely evenly spread out over 53 elementary schools, we would need one less teacher at each school and one less classroom at each school.

There are mechanisms to remove teachers who need removing. There are ways to recognize those who excel. Creating friction and a situation that doesn’t foster sharing and collaboration is not a good situation in teaching.

I agree, there are some who should not be practicing the art. However, setting up those said teachers with a classroom full of kids needing remediation and who don’t speak English and comparing that teacher to one who has everyone on grade level and coming from a 2 parent upper middle class home? I have news for you if you don’t think that wouldn’t happen.

The merit pay idea has been tossed around since the baby boomers came of age. In a perfect world, it would work. The world of school just isn’t that perfect world. Unfortunately, often the least productive in the classroom end up being the administrators. The expression ‘Kicked ‘em upstairs’ was probably invented in some school system. And besides, if I may ask, why do you care how they are paid?

Prince William will never be able to attract and maintain quality teachers until it pays competitively. It hasn’t for several years. It will continue take those who weren’t hired byLoudon, Fairfax, Manassas Park and City of Manassas.

Way too many excuses as to why it “…just won’t work”…but it does work…and it rewards excellence instead of mediocrity and retains quality teachers while leading non-performers toward a not so artsy and less lucrative career.

However, it’s not easy, so maybe we need to forget about the skill with which our teachers perform….give ‘em all the same pay raise, and kinda like leave it alone, huh?

Until there is a fair way to assess teacher performance, merit pay will never fly. Teaching is an art, not a science.
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I heard today that many kids showed up around November who were not in the count. Their parents were afraid to send them to school. I asked how many and was told about 20%. (whatever that means) There are many elementary schools that have lots and lots of esol students. The money from the state isn’t all that much anyway. Plus there are rumors.

I just think the jury is out on numbers. Money follows kids and often is reimbursable. Too complicated for me to figure out. I wouldn’t be cheering and counting the money yet though. It isn’t that simple.

Well Dolph, just think what could be done for our teachers AND our education system if we were to able to reward teachers based upon performance. Salary increase can be a wonderful incentive to improve performance…but according to the school board…not for our teachers. Regardless of skill, we’ll give them the same salary increase.

There comes a time when insistence upon the same increase for all, simply means that you don’t have enough money to give and thereby retain quality teachers…quality moves on, where the money is.

I still see 20 to 25 day laborers in the morning at the Coverstone 7-11 around 8am so I really can’t see any difference there, and it looks like one of the vacant flophouses is having some activity in it but they are real careful about parking on the street and walking in one at a time.

Maybe I should call zoning and see how many flee into the night the day I submit my complaint.

The kids were not as spread out as you would think. They were concentrated in certain schools. Since ESOL programs at the elementary level can be combined (and they make changes every year), then it will make a difference. In particular the two elementary schools I am involved with are both losing one ESOL class at the minimum.

You are so thick headed that it saddens me. I certainly hope you are not homeschooling your children, because you clearly lack the capacity.

You do, however, have quite a gift for reading words that aren’t written - and aren’t even implied - in a post. Was my post written in magic characters only visible to you? Absolutely nothing I wrote indicates in the SLIGHTEST that I want to KEEP ESOL students.

I want the illegals gone, in a bad way. They have destroyed my community. And continue to do so to this day. Route 1 looks like a little border town.

But if you think there is a dollar-to-dollar correlation between the cost to educate a student (any student) and the loss of a few hundred of those students, as has been propagated lately, then you are a fool.

There is indeed a significant cost savings. And there is a big savings in other areas too, like the “free” health care at the hospitals for faux emergencies.

All that said, 600 less ESOL students at $10,000 per student does not equal a 6 million dollar savings.

If you need me to spell out some of the fixed costs for you, I’d be happy to, if you aren’t capable of figuring it out for yourself. A large chunk of the cost to educate a child is a fixed cost that only changes with DRAMATIC enrollment changes. Sorry, but 600 kids is not dramatic.

Obviously everyone isn’t as generous and you and I are. I am willing to pay higher taxes for more services.

I am concerned that we are losing 85 county jobs, that our neighborhood services agents have to go on grass patrol and even then won’t be able to stay on top of it, and that over all as a county, we just look like we are on the cheap.

I am concerned that we have lost so much money out of the school budget. Prince William has been working on the cheap for a few years now anyway (definitely not ‘world class’ to work on the cheap) as far as salaries go. They have not kept pace with surrounding jurisdictions. They have gone on the cheap with replacing teachers who retire or quit also. Positions have been abolished where they are most needed. The list goes on.

I keep waiting for Dr. Walts to offer to not accept his big raise this year. If only he would say “I will take a 4.8% raise, just like the teachers are getting, and not one penny more,” I would have all sorts of new respect for the guy, but I am not going to hold my breath.

The part that really bothers me though is that you would even try…:( How can this be??