Train, pay our teachers better

This is pretty remarkably bold stuff -- scathing even -- from a mainstream newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

And that's what the General Assembly ought to make its No. 1 priority — fostering the nation's finest teaching corps.

Where are the 10 hours of public hearings on how to persuade the brightest students at the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech to choose teaching? The most effective teachers are those with high SAT or ACT scores and grade point averages, yet few of those high-achievers at the state's premier universities now go into teaching.

Those students should not have to come out of colleges of education, which have held the franchise too long without producing results. It's time to retire the education colleges and teach math teachers in the mathematics departments and science teachers in science departments.

In student achievement, experience matters and inexperience hurts. New teachers should serve longer and more meaningful internships. And they should have a deep background in their content area, especially if they are teaching math and science, which can't be faked.

To keep these smart, young people in the classroom, Georgia must abandon its one-size-fits-all raises that assure the lackluster teachers are overpaid and inspiring ones underpaid. The state must introduce a pay-for-performance system that rewards excellence.

Georgia also has to end the costly and counterproductive practice of handing out huge raises every time a teacher gets a master's degree, even if the sheepskin comes from a fly-by-night diploma mill and has no relevance to the teacher's content area. Georgia continues to reward teachers based on degrees on their walls rather than real accomplishments with their students.

As a result of this absurd policy, Georgia teachers have become the best customers of fast-food master's programs, where teachers essentially pull up to the drive-thru, order a quickie educational leadership degree and return home with credentials and higher pay in as little time as a month or two.

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GEORGIA LEGISLATURE 2008: Our wish list for next year's session.

Train, pay our teachers better
We already know effective educators make the most difference

Published on: 12/26/07

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/12/25/schoolsed_1226.html

When the Georgia Legislature resumes next month, it will take up several bills to change schools in the state. Unfortunately, the proposed legislation will do very little to actually improve them.

That's because lawmakers remain fixed on the wrong priorities.