Proposal from state education leaders reforms teacher licenses, pay

CHARLOTTE — Education leaders for North Carolina are working on a proposal that would reform teacher licenses and pay to address years of staffing shortages and to create a new teacher hiring pipeline.

Under the draft proposal, peer evaluations and student surveys would be among the metrics tied to a teacher’s license and pay.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools veteran teacher Justin Parmenter is against the plan. The seventh-grade language arts teacher is also a regional director for the statewide teacher’s union.

“I’ve been a teacher for 26 years and I love North Carolina,” Parmenter said. “It is a very frustrating place to be a teacher.”

His frustration is currently focused on a proposal being crafted by the state Department of Public Instruction’s Professional Educator Preparation and Standards Commission. It’s called the “Pathways to Excellence for Teaching Professionals Plan.”

“I think there are a lot of problems with the proposal, itself, in terms of what it does and doesn’t do,” Parmenter said.

DPI officials said goals for the new credentialing and licensure plan include eliminating barriers to licensure, compensating teachers better and attracting new teachers.

“They have not been part of a design for the profession,” he said. “It’s been in response to critical shortage.”

PEPSC member Van Dempsey explained the draft proposal sets out seven licensure levels, with pay ranging from $30,000 for a new teacher to $72,000 for an advanced one. Teachers would have to meet certain qualifications to move from one level to another.

“What are the kinds of evidence, meaning, what are the things we would expect to see in a teacher’s portfolio that would tell us, as a profession, when a person is ready to move in that progression from minimally licensed to fully licensed?” Dempsey asked.

However, Parmenter strongly disagrees with several of the evidence markers the PEPSC committee is considering.

“We have principal evaluations and peer evaluations and student surveys that are a part of this model,” Parmenter said. “I use them in my class because I want to know what my students like and don’t like about how I do business.” He added, “That’s a great way for me to learn and grow as a teacher. But to base my salary on that?”

Dempsey said his committee’s work is far from done.

“They’re in the process of framing out the language that would be in the recommendations,” Dempsey said.

Parmenter said a lot of damage has already been done when it comes to being a teacher in North Carolina.

“I think the impacts will be that we’re going to throw the doors open to people who are not prepared to be teachers,” Parmenter said.

Van Dempsey estimates the PEPSC committee will present its final recommendations to the state Board of Education in September.

Those could either endorsed, changed by the board or sent back to the committee for further work.

Some of that plan comes with a cost, so the proposal would also need approval from the state legislature.

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