Improve Education With Differential Pay

PJM: A ‘To-Do’ List for the Next Education President - Five things a President Obama or President McCain can do to improve the nation's schools.

There’s a pretty strong research consensus that teacher quality is one of the key factors in education outcomes. But teachers are currently paid like factory workers, not like professionals; they make the same salary regardless of how well they perform. We can’t expect to attract better performers into the teaching profession, or retain the ones we have, if teaching is the only professional field where pay is completely divorced from performance.

This idea is also raised by Alan Greenspan in his book The Age of Turbulence, p 404-405:

It is becoming increasingly clear that a flat pay scale when demand is far from flat is a form a of price fixing that undermines the ability to attract qualified math teachers. Since the financial opportunities for experts in math or science outside of teaching are vast, and for English literature teachers outside of teaching, limited, math teachers are likely to be a cut below the average teaching professional at the same pay grade. Teaching math is likely being left to those who are unable to claim the more lucrative jobs. That is far less true of English literature or history teachers.

How important is educational reform?

Fix the K–12 system, he said, so everybody passing through it emerges with a higher level of skills and knowledge than we’re getting today. This will do more to stem job loss, equalize opportunity, boost the earnings of the bottom third of the population, and generally strengthen the economy than any of the alternatives being mooted by Democratic presidential candidates, labor unions, and sundry other kvetchers and grumblers.

More on Differential Pay for teachers here.

A subtle shift is taking place in the way educators think about teacher compensation, and market forces are driving the change. Education policy-makers are slowly warming to the idea of paying bonuses to attract teachers in hard-to-staff disciplines such as math, science, and special education.

Because starting salaries for math and science professionals are much higher in the private sector than in public schools, school districts are having more trouble finding competent teachers in those fields.

This concept, known in education circles as differential pay, is not popular with everyone. Teachers unions, in particular, have bridled at the idea because union officials fear it will sow disunity among their members.

More here: Teacher Quality, Teacher Pay

Reformers of all stripes recognize that teacher compensation is a crucial element in hiring the teachers we need and steering them into the schools where they are needed most.

The problem is not the total amount paid to teachers but the fact that basing teacher pay on experience and credentials rather than performance means that pay isn’t necessarily going to those teachers who deserve it.

Highly paid teachers earn their salaries not because they are exceptional educators or have tackled tough assignments but because they have accumulated seniority in wealthy school systems where pay is based on longevity. Providing raises in such a system is enormously expensive because so much of the spending is soaked up by the undeserving.

Some more here: The Power of Differential Pay - A New Strategy to Recruit Quality Teachers

Federal policies should implement and support a variety of differential pay programs as a first step.

This proposal and others have wide bipartisan support, but there are still many that fervently oppose differential pay for teachers, arguing that all teachers should be paid the same regardless of their ability and assignments and that paying all teachers based on experience and education is fair.

These differential pay critics ignore the reality of the teacher labor market and the very real needs of our schools. Teachers in high-poverty schools face more difficult working conditions and often lower pay than other teachers, while math and science teachers forgo more lucrative positions in other fields when they choose to teach. Outstanding teacher candidates currently have much better opportunities with better pay and more professional growth in other fields.

We can continue to pretend that our current policies are working, or we can look at the data and acknowledge that we need to take more drastic action to improve the quality and equity of our teaching work force. It’s time for federal policy to make a critical investment in improving teacher quality, particularly for students in high-poverty schools.