Allen, you are so naive!

YES!!! If a principal wants to get rid of you, they lump all the failing kids in your class, knowing full well your CEI will be affected. And remember, they have been using these CEI's for years, but only NOW are telling teachers about them.

I personally experienced this for several years! You see, some of us get a reputation for either: a) being a troublemaker, or b) "works really well with troubled kids."

No joke! A teacher is PUNISHED by the CEI's for attempting to work with a class of low level students.

And now, under federal law, "inclusion" is the order of the day with special-ed students.

SO, you could try to teach kids at a 9th grade level, and you could have 5-7 in the class who have special needs, read at a 3rd grade level or can't pay attention and follow the class. In addition, you could also have in that class, two kids on probation. They just show up to keep their P.O. happy. Then you could have 4 kids who try, but they work in the family businesses, so they don't do their homework or fall asleep in class.

Shall I go on?

You see, UNLIKE Townview or Booker T, WE cannot choose our kids, screen them, have them apply to get in.

CEI's are patently unfair, and THAT is what teachers object to. We are all for accountability, but when you ask if theirs is a peer-reviewed study that shows incentive-pay works in advancing student achievement, you hear crickets. Nothing. Nada. Not one.

Be in favor a system that is fair. In another editorial comment, you said that CEI's are used "voluntarily." NO, they are not. They have been used for terminations. They have been used for reassigning teachers. They are used for seating them for staff development.

The pay provision is part of a PILOT program. What does that mean in government speak? "We are going to use it for all when we work it all out."

Look up Denver, Colorado's pay plan. THAT is where DISD is headed.

How about we grade your kids on what they teacher thinks they should have learned, and not what they actually did?

You see, if they had a REAL test at the start of the class: What do my new students know about IPC or Algebra I? Then test them at the end of the year and see what progress is made, maybe that would work. But to base them on what they did in ANOTHER subject last year, or what they SHOULD have learned, uh-uh.

[Ed Note: I've been accused of being naive before! But I know we need to do "something," and "something" always wins out over "nothing." It's how we got "tort reform" in Texas, and many other laws. If/when CEIs don't work, then come up with "something" that does.]