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| Making Teacher Pay Competitive |
| posted by: Alix | September 02, 2011, 04:19 PM |
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The teaching profession has for years been known for low and structured pay scales. As reformers and policymakers continually champion effective teaching as the key to improving student outcomes, the prospect of attracting our nation's best and brightest to a career in teaching seems grim under our current system. In the last few weeks, several key education leaders have endorsed competitive pay for teachers. Is the answer to attracting and sustaining top professionals simply dollars and cents, or is it more complicated in an educator workforce? As many have pointed out, our educator salary system is a remnant of a former generation and labor market that no longer exists in this country. It's based on a society where women had limited option professionally. Most were happy to accept a meager salary with a promise of a pension for life in order to have a job. This is simply not the case in 2011. Women are outnumbering men in college, leaving millions of talented women with the same, if not better, opportunities for competitive salaries and prestigious careers, yet our system never evolved. Today, in a policy adamantly defended by the unions, teachers are paid based largely on seniority. The structure is still back-loaded and designed for a teacher to stay in the classroom until retirement to collect a pension. In a climate where the average college graduate is expected to switch jobs at least three times before retirement, a pension thirty years from now is hardly an incentive to the modern professional. Just last month, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan argued that a significant boost in teacher salaries could transform public schools for the better by attracting the country's brightest college graduates into the profession. Under his vision, teachers should be paid a starting salary of $60,000, with the opportunity to make up to $150,000 a year. Along the same lines, Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) echoed Secretary Duncan's arguments, advocating for an entirely new compensation system. "Top-performing teachers who take on the toughest challenges should have the opportunity to make six-figure incomes early in their careers," Bennett said. "We should differentiate their salaries based on the difficulty of their assignments and their ability to drive results in the classroom." While policymakers can agree on competitive salaries as a means to attract new teachers, critics argue that paying teachers more will not necessarily improve student outcomes. Citing inconclusive evidence on performance pay initiatives, some contend that adding more money to the equation will not make ineffective teachers productive overnight. There is little research that shows the effect of higher pay on teacher performance, retention and satisfaction, partly because teachers are paid essentially uniformly nationwide due to union contracts. While the debate around teacher pay continues, it's clear that in order to attract new effective teachers, we must consider augmenting pay scales. However, it should be noted that money alone will not make our current workforce more effective. In today's grim financial climate, we clearly need to find a delicate balance between performance pay, improving teacher training and providing quality professional development. What do you think about teacher compensation? What plan do you think would work best for teachers and students alike? Comment below. Comments (2)
Supposed Merit Pay Based Teacher Salaries
written by Common Sense Teacher in Michigan, July 14, 2012
Music Teacher written by Larry Williams, September 06, 2011
I currently work under a contract that combines merit pay with a traditional ladder system. I'm all for merit pay, provided that teachers are evaluated using a set of standards and rubric for which they must show evidence that relate to student outcomes. They must be evaluated by a panel consisting of other professionals in their field, and their resulting pay must be a reflection of their productivity and talents. The system Im under now encouraged me to pursue my masters degree, to research and implement modern practices and to mentor others to do the same.
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History has shown that teachers within charter schools perpetually earn salaries substantially below those of other public school teachers, especially those who work within the supposed "constraints" of a union agreement.
The reality is that charter and private school teachers never, I repeat, never achieve the salaries and benefits that you are told you are not currently receiving because of "stifling" union contracts. Even the most successful and productive teachers in these environments, particularly charter schools, never achieve more than $30,000 to $40,000 per year. If you do not believe me check every survey and your local governmental records. The average charter school teacher makes $20,000-$30,000. And that is not just in their first year. And it is not just because the turnover in charter schools is twice as bad as in traditional public schools. The reason is that those "merit-based" raises simply never materialize. It is simply a carrot being dangled before your nose. Like Tantalus, charter school teachers are forever reaching for that never to be attained piece of fruit.
Those who promote charter schools to teachers and the others in reality wish to reduce the profession of teaching to the level of daycare or babysitting with salaries commensurate. And the method for doing so is as old as history. Divide and conquer.