Beacon Academy Speeches

“You’re not telling us anything we don’t already know,” a girl in the front row said. “But why do we have to drink that Kool-Aid? We were all hoping you’d tell us that as Beacon teachers we could actually teach students something meaningful, not feed them corporate, federalized garbage.”

“Not only are you going to have to feed them the Common Core, you’re going to have to make sure they’ve fully digested it,” James said. He was greeted with perplexed and frustrated expressions. “A large portion of your salary will be based on a system of bonuses. The largest chunk of those bonuses will be connected to student performance on standardized tests. If your students don’t do well on these tests, you won’t receive your bonuses, and you may well be

My name is Preston Cross, I am the Chief Financial Officer at Beacon Academy. I hope you all enjoyed your time at Rosewood yesterday and your day here at the Marriot. I’m here tonight to talk to you about the business side of things at Beacon Academy. Let’s start with a basic principle: Teachers at Beacon Academy live the school’s mission. This means, first and foremost that teachers at Beacon Academy are considered independent contractors. You will remain non-unionized employees. Any effort to bargain collectively is antithetical to the mission of our institution, and is grounds for immediate dismissal. To illustrate the importance of this principle, let me review the traditional compensation packages for unionized teachers in America’s public schools, and then contrast that package with the Beacon Academy approach: Unionized teachers in America are paid a static salary that is dictated by collectively negotiated contracts. Salary increases are based strictly on years of service and degrees earned. No consideration is given to the difficulty of a teaching assignment, or the impact on student learning. Traditional teachers also receive benefit packages that include health care and a guaranteed retirement administered by individual states that is similar to Social Security. Teachers, on average, begin their careers earning somewhere in the mid-$30,000 pay range. After 20-25 years of service, teachers max out in the mid-$80,000 pay range on most pay scales. After 38 years of service, public school teachers retire and earn a pension that usually involves some percentage of their top 3-years’ salary. Public school teachers labor under a contract that prescribes working conditions such as number of days of instruction, hours of daily instruction, number of classes taught, and other features that create a highly structured work environment. The entire system of unionized public school teaching is based on an industrial-era model that treats students like