I take a few things as givens right now:
- The factor that dwarfs all others in impacting the achievement level of our students is teacher quality. Which means that in order to return to the top level school system we once were, we must hire, develop, and retain top-quality teachers.
- Although class size has only been shown to be a meaningful factor in educational outcomes for the first few grade levels, Newton is not yet ready to grow class sizes across the board.
- The rate of teacher compensation growth in NPS is too high, and this is why the CAG has called the economics of our school system “unsustainable.”
- New revenue from overrides, new growth (development), closing tax loopholes for telecommunications companies, etc. is only a stopgap – cutting the growth rate of compensation is the only way we will get there, until our national health system costs are contained.
We are therefore left with this series of objectives – maintain the number of teachers we presently have, slow the growth rate of teacher compensation, and identify and implement all of the non-monetary features of a teacher’s work experience that will allow us to hire, develop, and retain top quality teachers as a means of taking pressure off of our budget. Continue reading Hiring, developing, and retaining top-quality teachers →