August 6, 2008
D.C. Teachers Push Polled by Union; Paid by Pro-Merit Group
While it's no secret that The American Federation of Teachers, the parent union of the local Washington Teachers' Union, isn't thrilled about the merit pay proposal being negotiated between the WTU and DCPS, the AFT had thus far stayed on the sidelines of the controversy. Not so much anymore.
DCPS teacher and local blogger DC Teacher Chic reports today that she was called by a pollster from the Hart Research Group, who asked a series of leading questions written to elicit responses against the merit pay plan (which DC Teacher Chic happens to support). She writes:
At the end of the survey, I just had to ask who was financing this poll. The woman replied, "The American Federation of Teachers." I told her that much was obvious, since the questions were geared toward making people dislike the proposal, and the AFT has long since been against performance pay. She just laughed and said, "Yeah...yeah."This comes on the same day as news that a pro-merit pay group has been paying a small number of teachers to sell the plan to their colleagues, much to the indignation of the AFT, so both sides are playing hardball here.
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...I guess they must feel pushed and polled in both directions?
...hello, is this thing on?
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I've dealt with Hart before when I worked for a Law Association. It's rather disgusting how their polls are presented as being completely unbiased.
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A push poll is really not a poll. It's designed to sway people's opinions to that of which organization paid for it. I'm a DC teacher and for the plan. Bring it to a vote, WTU. Let the teachers decide.
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i don't understand why people would be against merit pay. you do well, you get paid more. you don't do well, you don't get a raise.
isn't that the way most other kinds of jobs work?
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Erin the non-cynical answer to your question is that some teachers fear that they will not be judged fairly (due to racism, ageism, favoritism, or any other ism you can think of) and thus will be docked in pay despite being good teachers.
The cynical answer is that there are lazy teachers that have no interest in doing more than is absolutely required and thus they don't want to actually get paid accordingly.
My guess is that the opposition is a mix of both groups.
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OK, pet peeve time. I used to work for a pollster, and THIS IS NOT A PUSH POLL. Push polls are not in fact polls at all; instead, it's just a telemarketing effort designed as a poll. A real push poll would not tell you who's conducting the poll, or would use a fake name, and they would not ask long detailed questions; instead they would keep things short, not ask demographic information, and try to make as many calls as possible, discarding the data gathered. This is just the AFT testing out negative messages to see which is most effective--a totally legitimate use of polling. See Pollster.com for more.
(/vent)
Now that said, I am in favor of the merit pay proposal. Just wanted to get that off my chest.
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This is not a push poll.
Here is an example of a push poll question:
"Would you still support this proposal if you knew it was supported by David Duke and funded by the American Neo-Nazi Party?"