480 in the collection  

It's in public's interest to disclose teachers' bonuses

Ohanian Comment: I wonder if you're as disturbed as I by the gloating teacher's comment. Of course, I hold that empathy is one of the greatest strengths a teacher has to offer. No money in that.

By James T. Campbell

Houston Independent School District teachers and their supporters, while conceding that the information was public, argued that releasing it was "disrespectful" and demonstrated "bad judgment" on our part.

They complained that tension was palpable at HISD schools on Wednesday. The information caused "embarrassment," "dissension" and "disgust," they said. They urged that someone "should be fired" for making the decision to release it.

"I thought the Chronicle was supposed to report the news, not create it," a teacher wrote. "By listing who got what incentive money, the Chronicle has made a bad situation worse. If there was a way to rectify the situation, then your story might have some merit. As things stand now, it is very disturbing to have a co-worker walk up and tell me how much I made. My finances should be private. I disagree with the whole merit pay system. We should have been given the money evenly across the board. That didn't happen. Now you have people angrier and more upset than ever. Congratulations. Now, tell me how that helps disgruntled and overworked teachers? How does creating a bigger mess help anyone besides the Chronicle? How were your sales today? How many hits? A journalist is to report the news not create it."

While the above comment was the prevailing one, there was another side.

"I thought it was great," a teacher wrote, regarding the release of the information. "It was validation. The public had the right to know, and teachers had the right to know. That is the power of public education. The public owns the school. The board sometimes forgets, and so do teachers. But the people who say performance pay will cause hurt feelings are right. And the people who say some teachers will gloat are right. To be brutally honest, I didn't enjoy the money I got half as much as the money other people didn't ... "

As a journalist, I agreed with our decision to release the information. As a parent of a child who attends an HISD school, I was interested to know "who got what incentive money" at his school.

Conversely, I had some ambivalence about the newspaper publishing the information.

Money is a sensitive subject in any workplace, public or private. I certainly would not want my colleagues to know how much I earn. But I work for a private company. Public school teachers are employed by the public and are subject to a scrutiny that is open to the public.

We requested the information because we considered it important for parents, teachers and taxpayers to know which teachers did or did not receive bonuses. Apparently, many teachers, parents and interested observers availed themselves of the information.

By Friday, there had been nearly 400,000 page views of the teacher bonus database on chron.com. Moreover, comments on our School Zone blog neared 400.

While it is easy for HISD Superintendent Abe Saavedra to deflect blame for the tension among teachers toward the bad, old Chronicle, as he did in a letter to HISD employees on Thursday, the fact is the paper did not create an incentive pay system that rewarded some 8,000 teachers and staff, but left many others questioning why they didn't get a bonus.

In publishing the information, we created a public discussion that may not have happened but for the data being disclosed. If we hadn't published the information, the only validation of the program would have been back pats all around and celebratory tributes to the teachers who received the biggest bonuses as "the cream of the crop."

Disclosing public information as sensitive as what someone makes isn't easy. It can and did cause some embarrassment, hurt feelings and tension. But as a result, the superintendent has vowed to work with teachers and principals to devise a better bonus plan. After all, isn't that what teachers want?

Campbell is the Chronicle's Readers' Representative and a member of the Editorial Board (james.campbell@chron.com).


— James T. Campbell
Houston Chronicle
2007-01-27
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4503940.html

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