Career Ladder

I don't know if every state has a Career Ladder program, but if your state doesn't have a Career Ladder, I'll bet you have a Career Buddy or a Career Builder or a Career Time Waster...

Anyway, Career Ladder is a project you have to do if you want to make a little more money... I mean be a better teacher (or so they tell you). Part of the project involves writing a very long paper. It takes a lot of time (even for me and I am a very fast writer). I, like most teachers in this state, have accepted the fact that you have to do Career Ladder and put in these hours to make the money. The Career Ladder project has always been built upon the understanding that teachers will do x amount of work to make x amount of money. Of course, Career Ladder preaches that Career Ladder is just incentive for good teachers to do what they already do, but let's be honest: most good teachers do not voluntarily write a 20+ page paper in an extremely strict format.

This year, the contract has changed. Career Ladder has just informed us that we will still need to do x amount of work, but they will not be paying us x amount of money. How much have they reduced our "incentive"? They can't tell us. Not even a ballpark figure...

So, they're asking us to complete these insidious projects on the good faith that we'll be justly rewarded one way or the other. We do all of this work and they'll let us know how much we'll be paid at some point. It makes me mad because I wouldn't quit and be out 2,000 dollars; but if I'm already out 1500 dollars, is it worth all this work to make 500$ more over the course of they year?

Neat trick, huh?