A MASTER MYSTERY FOR IDAHO TEACHERS

Opinion – The Bengal
Levi B Cavener
Submitted Article
If you are a teacher who feels a little lost about the Master Teacher Premium–which is now also apparently being referred to as the Master Educator Premium–don’t feel bad. The legislature is equally lost in the program of their own making.
A survivor of the shipwrecked tiered licensure, the master teacher premium was hatched as a way to get some educators closer to the original sixty thousand salary goal line after the legislature capped the career ladder salary allocation short at just fifty thousand. When implemented in 2019, qualifying teachers will receive an additional four thousand per year for three years.
Some problems: the rubric which will be used to assess which teachers are Jedi quality and which are still padawans has not been developed. Teachers will be required to submit a portfolio of artifacts covering at least three of the previous five school years, but the evaluation tool and process to evaluate selected evidence to determine the superhero variety of teachers from their sidekick colleagues has not yet been determined.
Because, as teachers know, best practice is to assign work to students by only giving them a vague idea about what is expected. Make sure to avoid generating a rubric prior to giving the assignment. When asked by students for an assessment tool that is little more specific, best practice is to shrug and let students know a rubric should be available in the next year or two. Hopefully. Foolproof pedagogy!
Keep in mind that the legislature really has no idea this test of teacher awesomeness is going to cost the state. Sen. Thayn went so far as to call the plan a “house of straw” that has a shaky financial foundation at best.
Idaho Ed News reported the State Dept. of Education estimating that only a shockingly small ten percent of ...


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