To bolster teacher quality, schools systems desperately need to institute variable pay structures that reward educators based on performance and challenging assignments, according to a by TNTP, a prominent nonprofit teacher-recruitment and policy organization.
Citing U.S. Department of Education data, the report says that nearly 90 percent of school systems currently use so-called 鈥渟teps and lanes鈥� compensation systems under which teachers鈥� salary increases are determined largely on the basis of years of experience and advanced degrees obtained. Such 鈥渓ockstep鈥� pay systems, according to the report, deter ambitious young people from entering teaching and drive top-performing educators into other professions due to lack of earning potential.
To illustrate the predicament, the report offers a comparison of the expected salary growth of a biology teacher to that of a biologist:
鈥淚n [the teaching] profession, great work isn鈥檛 valued,鈥� the authors charge. 鈥淵ou couldn鈥檛 design a policy more indifferent to excellence if you tried.鈥�
As an alternative approach, TNTP recommends that school systems design compensation plans around three central planks: making early-career teacher salaries competitive with those of other professional jobs in the area; basing salary increases on classroom performance; and creating incentives for teaching in high-needs schools. By acting on these three principles, the report says, schools can 鈥渟tart recruiting and retaining great teachers because鈥攏ot in spite of鈥攕alaries they offer.鈥� Such systems, the report says, have showed promising results in reform districts like the District of Columbia and Newark, N.J.
The report doesn鈥檛 specify exactly how teachers鈥� level of classroom performance should be determined, but it emphasizes the role of 鈥渞igorous鈥� evaluation systems鈥攁n issue TNTP has championed since its influential 2009 report on schools鈥� inability (or unwillingness) to indentify differences in teachers鈥� effectiveness. A number of the school systems highlighted in the new report for using innovative pay strategies have implemented evaluation programs that incorporate teachers鈥� statistically measured impact on students鈥� test scores. But overreliance on that approach has become increasingly controversial, both among teachers and academic researchers.
The report argues that, even though the compensation systems it envisions would significantly increase the salaries of some teachers, they would in effect pay for themselves by eliminating or reducing yearly salary increases to ineffective teachers and automatic raises provided to master鈥檚 degree recipients. However, it鈥檚 worth noting that both the District of Columbia and Newark at least initially had considerable funding from private foundations to finance their implementation of performance-based compensation program.
Teachers themselves, on the whole, have expressed skepticism about performance-pay initiatives. In a 2012 conducted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic, only 16 percent of respondents said that peformance pay would help retain effective teachers, while only 26 percent said that it would make a strong or very strong impact on student achievement. In conversations with the survey researchers, teachers said they didn鈥檛 feel confident that current evaluation systems could accurately gauge their effectiveness and so were doubtul that performance pay could be 鈥渕eaningfully implemented.鈥�
In the ongoing debates about performance pay, educators have also expressed concern that performance-pay plans could be detrimental to schools鈥� cohesion and sense of collective effort by for pay increases.
In a blog post related to the TNTP report, teacher Peter Greene of Curmudgucation (among other things) the group鈥檚 contention (in its own ) that performance pay isn鈥檛 necessarily a 鈥渮ero-sum game鈥� for schools. 鈥淥f course performance-based pay is a zero-sum game,鈥� he writes. 鈥淪chool districts do not make more money when they do well. The pie is fixed by the tax rate. Performance-based pay means we must all get out the knives, either for the pie or each other.鈥�
Source for chart image: TNTP,