Performance Pay


(Clint Green is the programs officer at the Acton Institute. This article is a product of the Acton Institute — www.acton.org, 161 Ottawa NW, Suite 301, Grand Rapids, MI 49503 — and is reprinted with permission.)



Indeed, these same teachers did not spend much of their summer on vacation; rather, they were busy — attending workshops and visiting teachers’ stores, always looking for that one key that may unlock learning for their students.

Other teachers, though, were not so diligent. They simply came into their classrooms on the first day of school for only the first or second time since May. These teachers are carefree and careless as they approach the school year. After all, it’s only (fill in the blank) years to retirement. After all, it’s only a job and they will get paid no matter what. The unions have seen to that.

October 5 marked World Teachers’ Day — a day that celebrates the unique contribution that teachers make to the world. Most importantly, that day commemorates the important role that teachers have in the formation of the future. However, while it is universally recognized that not just anyone can teach effectively, we do little the other 364 days of the year to reward the many who do.

There is a difference between the two approaches to education cited above, yet the teachers’ unions refuse to see it. While they may continually call for improved schools and higher standards, the unions refuse to take necessary steps to ensure that goal. Among those steps is one that other industries and organizations adopted long ago: “pay for performance”.

The idea behind giving incentives for outstanding performance is not a new one. Many businesses use this strategy to great effect, rewarding hard work, dedication, and excellence in their employees. Teachers should be given the same incentives for excellence and dedication. However, under the current teacher compensation plans, teachers are not compensated based on their results, or their excellence, but rather on their seniority.

Interest in this issue is growing, according to Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of Great City Schools. “It’s coming up in contract after contract. It doesn’t mean the school system is being successful in the negotiations, but it now gets on the table pretty consistently.” If this is so, and if this concept has been successfully implemented in other industries, the question rightfully asked is, why is it not so well received in education?

The answer is actually rather complicated. Teachers fear that low-performing urban schools will lose out, since their students so often score much lower on standardized tests than do student in the suburbs. Teachers worry that pay for performance will force competition among teachers and thereby break down cooperation in schools.

These are serious concerns, given the moral and ethical questions they raise. However, these fears can be overcome. Salary increases can be linked to overall performance and improvement, rather than absolute scores. In other words, as long as a student’s performance improves from year to year, teachers in urban and low-performing schools will benefit as much as teachers in affluent suburban districts.

Roy Romer, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, told the Los Angeles Times in 2001, that the way to avoid damaging teacher cooperation and forcing competition is to use two variables to determine raises. First, evaluate performance in the individual classroom; second, evaluate performance increases for the entire school. Romer argues that adding the second dimension will also add an incentive for older, more experienced teachers, to mentor newer teachers. Thus, not only is an individual’s raise tied to the performance of his or her own students, but it is also linked to the performance of the school as a whole.

Additionally, educators that choose to work in the poorer urban and rural schools deserve to be compensated for that choice. In the same way, teachers who choose to specialize in the more difficult-to-fill fields of math and science should also be compensated accordingly. It is an accepted fact that individuals with more sought-after skills are generally paid more than those with less desired skills. If this is true in business and industry, why not in education?

More than this, there is a moral dimension to teacher compensation. Justice demands that those who do their job, and do it effectively, deserve to be rewarded. In contrast, the current system of teacher compensation neither rewards those who are effective, nor punishes those who are not.

It is heartening to see that the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teacher union in the United States, on its official Web site, states, “recognizing the limitations of the single salary system…(the AFT) is encouraging its locals to explore various teacher compensation systems based on local conditions.” While this is not a blanket endorsement of performance pay, the union does indicate that there are serious shortcomings in the present system.

As the teachers’ unions gear up for the state and federal elections, now just four weeks away, policy questions come into the foreground of public awareness. These unions offer many proposals to help “fix” the American educational system, proposals ranging from increased funding of schools and programs, to modernization. While no one proposal will repair decades of decline, pay for performance is an important first step in addressing the systemic problems which lie at the heart of the public school crisis.

A system that rewards everyone, regardless of performance, does little to provide incentives for outstanding effort and achievement. Students take their cues from the adults charged with educating them, and the vast majority of teachers take this charge seriously and discharge it out well. They recognize the correlation between their performance and the performance of their students. If we want our children to strive for excellence, can we really afford to expect less from their teachers?

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