Invest in the Best

Janese Heavin, education reporter for the Columbia Daily Tribune, has started a lively debate on teacher pay with an article on school spending in Columbia Public schools. You can find the discussion both on her Class Notes blog and at the Tribune’s message board on the subject. Her original topic was that while Columbia public schools have some of the highest per pupil spending, their graduation rates were lower than other similar districts spending less, and dropout rates higher.

The conversation detoured to teacher compensation: should it be less? More? More than a tenth of the superintendent’s salary?

Some are saying that teaching is easy, and that they should have to earn pay increases, not automatically get them. Others argue that they have knowledge of teachers who endure unspeakable hardships yet find the will to keep on teaching because they love it and feel called to it. I think the opinions expressed probably have something to do with the teachers each person has in mind. I have in mind a teacher who single-handedly taught me how to research and what civic responsibility means. Half of the kids in that class with me are either in government-related jobs or are pursuing as Master’s in history or political science or law. It took more than 40 minutes a day on his part to give us that kind of experience, and it took commitment on our part. Oh, and did I mention he was retired and didn’t get paid to spend time before and after school coaching us in government competitions?

I think it’s apparent that good teachers make a difference. They did for me, and I was already a bookworm, love-to-learn type. So I wanted to see what was so bad about rewarding those teachers. I had performance-based pay raises for mopping floors, so why not in a more critical field like education?

The first argument I ran into was that socio-economic factors are more influential in a child’s life than teachers. I’m afraid I don’t like that line of reasoning—because it makes capability subjective. I’m sorry child, but your home life isn’t too good, so I can’t be expected to impart to you the same information that the other kids get. Child, you’ll be distracted in class and you won’t get your homework done. There are plenty of counteracting influences as well—after school programs, tutoring and the inspiration that talented teachers foster.

Cincinnati’s public schools were the first to test-drive merit pay in 1997 with a peer evaluation (peer evaluators held no stake in the outcomes and used factors like class preparedness). Teachers liked the process and believed it was fair and useful. The system they used doesn’t even use test scores, so that assuages the “teach to the test” fear that many express: a merit pay system doesn’t have to be based on tests and tests alone.

Benefits, on the other hand, are the ability to retain new teachers, many of which leave in the first 5 years or become discouraged because they get no compensation for going beyond the bare minimum. Falling many places along the spectrum of merit pay, Iowa, Denver and Cincinnati’s models show us that merit pay doesn’t mean making teachers compete for money. I just means not rewarding all teachers to the fullest extent because some teachers deserve that. It’s a way to retain young, passionate teachers, a way to help ineffective teachers understand that this is not their calling. It’s a way for teachers to hold themselves accountable rather than having restrictions imposed on an administrative or government level.

I have a friend who is substitute-teaching and being told to not do so much extra work because it makes the other teachers look bad. She didn’t get a job in the classroom she subbed in for 6 months because another teacher with seniority wanted the position. Does that sound like a system that retains and promotes the best and most capable teachers?