Wild guess here, but I'm thinking you might be pleased. You might welcome some recognition, some financial incentive to do your best. After all, as we are constantly told, every day of a child's education is valuable. So valuable in fact that schools are looking at fining parents who take their kids out of school in term time to take advantage of cheaper holidays. Every day is vital. And I agree wholeheartedly with that. At primary and secondary school, every day of learning is of value. I don't think that parents should take their kids out of school in term time. Nor, incidentally, using the same criteria, do I think that teachers should go on strike in term time, thereby taking away these valuable days from our kids.
And this initiative is not just about young NQTs (Newly Qualified Teachers) but about recognising and rewarding the efforts of all teachers who do well. Whose performance is good. Measured in terms of the outcomes achieved by the kids under their supervision. Is there really any other measure that is anywhere near as meaningful? And nor is it about having the brightest kids - so you'll obviously do well - quite the opposite in fact. It's about getting the best out of kids of all abilities - it can be achieved (perhaps even more easily, certainly more noticeably) when the achievement is by kids of lesser ability. It stands out more you see.
I'm struggling to find what's not to like about this initiative if you're a bright, motivated teacher who's keen to get the best out of your charges. And if you agree, you're part of a group that is trying to get the best out of the system; trying to attract the best people to be teachers, trying to deliver the best outcomes in terms of attainment and achievement for our kids. If not you are, almost by definition, letting the kids and the best teachers down.
If you just turn up, take the money and the holidays and run; then you might not welcome what Mr Gove is trying to achieve. If you believe that it is not effort or results, but 'time served' that should dictate whether you get promoted or not, then you are almost certainly going to be in the opposing camp, along with your teaching unions. And along with the system as a whole which, today's report suggests very clearly, is failing our young people.
Obviously incentivising effort and achievement will involve some 'devil in the detail' stuff - at secondary schools in particular teaching is something of a team sport where you don't necessarily control the whole outcome, just the subject you teach, but that is directly measured so it shouldn't be a major problem should it?
In principle at any rate, a method of incentivising, measuring and rewarding outstanding effort (by you) that leads to genuinely better results for one (or all) of your pupils must be a good thing? It's good for you in terms of pay and, thinking about the wider world just for a moment, good for the kid and even better for their future employer and the very economy by which your efforts are paid. Everyone's a winner given the good work that you deliver. Oh happy day.
Yes? Thank you. Truly. Thank you very much.
No?
OK, if you're a teacher - or even if you're not - tell me why, in principle, this could possibly be a bad thing? Yes there will be issues of detail; of measurement. It is a complex situation, but in principle is the concept of identifying, encouraging and rewarding effort and achievement by teachers a bad thing? If it leads, as it surely must, to better outcomes for kids?
Don't give me 'unworkable' or 'complexity' or 'you should leave it to the experts' bullshit. Just tell me why an initiative designed to improve standards and to reward good teachers is a bad thing in principle.
If you have a brain - and presumably you have in order to become someone in the lofty and seriously important position of being able to teach others - I simply do not see how you can reject this issue in principle. I'm not saying this is simple or easy to deliver in practise, but I am saying, firmly, that it is the right direction for us to be trying to go in.
But the NUT (was there ever a better or more apt name for a union?) and the NASUWT are trying to block this initiative at every turn. And they represent you.
So, the strike is about pensions and benefits. And I have some serious sympathy with that as an issue, but we're living in tough times, largely because of the antics of the last Labour government which the NUT supported. Why should teachers be singled out to ride the storm when everyone else has to feel some pain? But this is not really just about pay and pensions, it's about 'the blob' (read more here) and about trying to discredit Gove at every turn, with any and all excuses to do so taken up by the NUT and the NASUWT. To the point where the unions will do anything to stop his reforms and improvements. So pensions is one thing, but stopping progress is quite another. And if the system was delivering well educated kids, with high achievements on an international scale, I think most people would welcome it and recognise your achievements and back your cause. But that is not currently the case is it?
Since 2000, our kids have fallen, in the world league, from 8th to 27th in maths, 7th to 25th in reading and 4th to 16th in science according to the OECD's Pisa international assessment criteria. So much for Mr Blair's endlessly improving GCSE and A-level results or his 'education, education, education mantra. It was just spin, as usual from him. Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt is blaming Mr Gove, but, three year's in? After 13 years of Labour and when (as you well know) Mr Gove's reforms have not fully kicked in yet, let alone been responsible for a cycle of educational attainment. And they are still being resisted, tooth and nail, by members of your profession (if you are a teacher, obviously).
Instead of putting all your considerable efforts and brainpower into blocking Mr Gove's improved performance-based initiative, how about putting those same efforts into trying to make it work? To get around the many and varied obstacles and to deliver a better level of education for all our kids and for the benefit of them, their families and the future of our country?
Even if it is difficult to achieve - and I'm sure that it is - why are your efforts designed to make it more difficult rather than trying to achieve a solution that you cannot fault in principle?
If that is the case- and I don't really see what other conclusions one can draw - I can only deduce that those efforts are not about improving the level of our kids' skills and achievement, but about making life easier for crap teachers. And there are crap teachers. You and I both know this to be true, if we're honest, and I'm sure you are. Protecting under-achievement. Maintaining a situation which is seeing ever declining standards and which is failing our kids and our country.
Only 18 teachers have been sacked for incompetency in the last four decades, out of an annual pool of 500,000 teachers. The crap teachers are 'compromised' (compromise agreement) out of their current jobs instead of being sacked (so with no stain on their records) and they just go on to another school and practise their incompetency with another set of unfortunate kids for whom every day is not valuable but, largely a waste of time. Surely you're not resisting this improvement initiative to protect crap teachers?
Well guess what? I think that's exactly what (many of) you (and in particular the teaching unions) are doing. It's exactly what the NUT and the NASUWT are doing, daily. And you, in whose hands the future skills and thereby prosperity of our young people and via them, our country resides, are doing this to defend your own inadequacies or those of your colleagues. If you are a bright, motivated teacher with the interests of your charges at heart, you should not be standing by while this is happening, much less supporting the unions' constant strike action - taking away oh-so-valuable days of teaching and learning from our kids. It's time for you to stand up to this nonsense.
It's not as if we're leading the world in educational standards is it? If we were, you would get much more - probably universal - support for better pay and conditions.
What is currently happening in your name is simply not good enough.
Poor teachers are supported. They have competency support in which they're consulted and 'retrained' in line with what is expected. They are supported and re-measured (you know this of course) and then re-evaluated. And then, if all's well, we move on. But if it's not, if after all that support the person is found to be just not god enough to be a teacher, what happens? They get a compromise agreement, often a pay off, and they are then released with no stain on their record to go and ply their incompetence at another school. How can that be right?
Final point (if I may): this current 'qualified teacher status' stuff is a smokescreen isn't it? It's about pulling up the ladder. Having a PGCE does not mean you're a good teacher, it just means you've completed the course. Likewise someone who might be an expert in their subject but who doesn't have a PGCE might also not be a good teacher. But in both cases they might be a great teacher. And it's really down to the head who employs them to decide and then to monitor the situation.
Tell me I'm wrong, but bring proof not bullshit. Reasons why what you and the unions are doing will be good for our kids rather than protecting and perpetuating what looks increasingly like failure to me. This is not about a 'fun' day out on a strike, preparing placards and banners and having a laugh. This is deadly serious. It's about the skills that our future citizens and leaders will have. It's about the future prosperity of our country. And what it looks increasingly like to me, is that too many of our teachers and teaching unions simply don't give a shit about it.
Thanks for reading.
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