Anyone with half a brain would pay Employee A more because of their dedication to the company. You would want to incentivize the work ethic and contributions of Employee A for the whole company, not reward mediocre/poor performance. But what if the employees above were teachers? Who would get paid more? Employee B. And not by a little bit, either. For many districts in New Jersey for example it'd be $15,000 difference in Employee B's favor. But why? Pay should be used to attract and keep talented employees. Therefore, pay scales and systems should be set up to achieve that end. Also, for obvious reasons, pay scales also need to incentivize desirable behavior and discourage undesirable behaviors. So what do the vast majority of pay scales look like in education? NOTE: The purpose of this article is NOT to discuss the amount of money teachers get paid (that will come later), simply the system by which they get paid. The pay scales above are from Nebraska (Lincoln), New Jersey (E Newark and Millburn), Alabama (Mountain Brook City), and Massachusetts (Lexington), but you will find guides that look like this all over the country. One of the pay scales above is actually from 1976-78, and yet it's almost identical to the ones used today almost 50 years later. (I challenge you to find ANYTHING that's the same as it was in 1976 outside of education...) For now, ignore the dollar amounts on the contracts, as that will be a different article coming soon. For now, focus on the structure of the guides. What do these pay scales incentivize? The question one should always ask about employee compensation. Simply put, the current pay scale system incentivizes two things: longevity and higher education. Sounds reasonable, as the longer a teacher is teaching, the better they get, right? And if they're better educated themselves, they'll become a better teacher! However these metrics incentivize bad behaviors and are killing education by driving good teachers out of the profession. For each of the metrics (longevity and graduate degrees), we will answer three questions:
Graduate Degrees Are they effective? Unfortunately study after study after study (dating into at least the 1980s) has shown almost no correlation between attaining a higher degree and effectiveness in the classroom. In technical subjects it appears that more subject knowledge can have a small effect, which makes sense (and reinforces Einstein's addage "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."). How are they achieved? Types of degrees: in-person, online, hybrid When: during the school year (nights, weekends), in the summer In-person classes taken at night or on the weekends during the school year can be exhausting, and split one's attention between teaching and study. Human beings are not very good at multi-tasking, so this leads to (in the words of Ron Swanson) half-assing two things. Most teachers are either unable or unwilling to attend in-person classes, and so opt to complete work through largely/solely online programs. These programs often fail miserably to replicate in-person programs, and are not very effective (according to the DOE and anyone who has ever taken a primarily online class). What do they incentivize? I regularly see teachers assign "busywork" to their students so that they can work on grad school work during school hours. If you want to get paid more, the ONLY way you can increase your own pay is by getting more credits/degrees. There is no incentive to truly invest in your education (completing in-person degrees at highly-ranked universities, conducting research, etc.), but there ARE incentives to get a graduate degree as fast and as easily as possible, which leads many teachers to online schools that don't actually teach them much. Longevity Is this effective? The longer someone is in a job, generally the more effective and possibly efficient they can become. Once someone has mastered the basics, they are then able to work on bigger-picture or higher-level skills. However, people in a job for a long time often become more complacent. They begin to get set in their ways and often resist change (because "this is the way we've always done it"). Exceptions to the rule abound (these are usually the teachers/employees who mentor and guide others and are truly memorable), but they are usually just that: exceptions. How is it achieved? Although the answer to "How is longevity achieved?" may seem obvious (i.e. "staying in teaching"), it is much more complicated. In many states a tenure system dominates the thoughts of teachers and administrators alike. The subject of "tenure" is a divisive issue, but the purpose of this article is not to comment on whether or not tenure should exist. For those unfamiliar with the tenure system, in many states after 3-4 years of teaching it becomes virtually impossible to let go of a teacher for most reasons. The problem with tenure is its default, "yes." New teachers are taught to fear taking chances and risking "failure," lest it lead to their not receiving tenure. I was told repeatedly to "keep my head down" until I received tenure. "Don't even consider taking the kids on a field trip until you receive tenure," one solemnly confided in me, "You don't want to risk it." If most teachers are not going to take risks and try new things in their first 3-4 years (the years before they are set in their ways), when WILL they? Longevity in teaching is therefore accrued by keeping one's head down; by not taking risks, standing out, nor trying new things, then becoming set in their ways and resistant to change, teachers achieve tenure and are almost entirely unable to be let go for just those reasons. What does it incentivize? "The breathing bonus" is what I've heard some teachers refer to longevity-based pay because it rewards exactly one thing: breathing. It doesn't encourage teachers to try new things or innovate, to get involved in the school beyond the contractually-obligated 8-3 daily schedule with monthly faculty meetings, to collaborate with colleagues, or ANYTHING OTHER THAN BREATHING. It doesn't recognize or reward hard-working, innovative teachers, and tells newer teachers, "You're just not as valuable," despite many of those newer teachers seeing with their own eyes evidence to the contrary. In fact it makes rewarding or recognizing hard-working or creative teachers impossible. Teachers are not allowed to jump steps, and supervisors/administrators are unable to offer their best, most promising new teachers financial incentives to stay. When many of those teachers inevitably leave for greener pastures, those same hamstrung administrators are stuck with their (often) mediocre tenured teachers. Paying based on longevity incentivizes mediocrity, keeping one's head down, and resisting change. There's no reason to change, or improve, because there's no financial incentive to do so. It's no wonder that 8% of teachers leave the profession every year, why so many leave in the prime of their careers (no I'm not sure why that chart shows 14-18 year olds), and so many people don't want to enter the profession at all. Show me a successful profession in which the poorest performing members are compensated at the same rates as the most effective. If you were a high-performing highly-motivated go-getter, would YOU want to work in a system in which Employee A is paid less than Employee B? At this point should we really be confused as to why there's a teacher shortage? So we agree that change should happen as the current system fails on virtually every front, but... Why won't it change? In most places it's a combination of unions and collective bargaining agreements, the poor/mediocre tenured teachers themselves not wanting to potentially get paid less, or simply a lack of understanding of the problem or willingness to try new solutions. There is one issue that lies at the heart of all the others: there's no one perfect system to objectively evaluate teachers. Short of using standardized test scores (which doesn't work for a multitude of reasons and may incentivize the wrong things like teaching to the test or cheating), there's really only one other primary option: using observation scores. Observations Considering observation scores in determining teacher pay does present some solvable problems. A teacher teaching 5 courses/year can teach anywhere between 600-900 individual classes a year (depending on the bell schedule), but in most places is only observed in 2-4 each year (most/all of which are in effect announced in advance). The number of observations per year should increase dramatically, whether we tie observation scores to pay rates or not. Administrators are often not well-trained in observing, training, or providing feedback to teachers, so the fear is that pay of the teachers disliked by administrators will be docked. Many administrators fail to stay for an entire lesson anyway, due to personal preference or other obligations. Solutions However, there ARE solutions to the problem of how to design pay systems, solutions that corporate America has been developing over the last half a century. Observations should be the primary but not the only way of identifying good teachers. We neglect and debase the professionalism and intelligence of administrators if we assume they're unable to identify good teachers. If they can't: why would you want to work there anyway? One thing that is important to remember is that teachers with families may not be able to be as present/active in the extra-curricular affairs of a school. The systems put in place should not punish teachers who cannot commit the same time a younger staff member can, but should definitely reward the behavior from anyone across the board. Another issue is that teachers may believe they deserve to be paid more because they incorrectly believe they are a better teacher than they actually are. They are therefore likely to attribute low observation scores etc. to a force outside of their own control ("My score was low, so Administrator X must just dislike me."). Therefore training and goal-setting for individual teachers should be the norm. Conclusion The system we use to determine teacher pay is based on longevity and graduate degrees obtained, which has not changed in 50+ years. Basing a pay scale on more degrees encourages teachers to pursue graduate degrees that have little to no effect on their teaching abilities and splits their attentions during the school year (eg. completing graduate work during school). The "breathing bonus" incentivizes keeping one's head down and resisting change/taking risks, and frustrates good teachers by rewarding them at the same or lower rates as mediocre or poor teachers. The current pay scale hamstrings administrators by making them unable to reward high-quality teachers (which leads to many of those teachers leaving the profession). A new system could be agreed upon (as "research" has been going on in corporate America for decades), but teachers resist changing to a new system because of a lack of objectivity in identifying "good" teachers. This is despite the fact that it IS possible to identify and reward positive habits, and a new system need not be based solely around one metric like observation scores. The bottom line: we're paying the WRONG teachers TOO MUCH, and worrying about finding a perfect solution is driving good teachers out. Further reading: https://www.nap.edu/read/1751/chapter/7 https://www.learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/Solving_Teacher_Shortage_Attract_Retain_Educators_REPORT.pdf http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov09/vol67/num03/The-Problem-with-Performance-Pay.aspx
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Every educator learns quickly that there are a lot of problems in education today. Whether one teaches at an elementary school or at a college or university, it becomes apparent that educators are at a severe disadvantage. I've been told countless times to "close the door and teach;" to ignore the problems with the system and/or school and just focus on my students. It is becoming increasingly difficult to use this stick-one's-head-in-the-sand approach, not least because the issues leech INTO the classrooms more and more.
We will post occasionally when one of the authors is moved to write something and we will not promise to post at set intervals. Life is busy! From entitled attitudes to the pervasiveness of cell phones, the close-mindedness of colleagues to the meddling of parents, our goal is to expose the problems in American education... At All Levels. |
AuthorsJust some educators in the United States from all levels (K-college).
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