Rethinking teacher compensation
Equitable pay for teachers is part and parcel of improving student performance

by Sandra Feldman

It’s no secret that teachers are significantly underpaid. New teachers earn, on average, $8,000 less per year than other recent graduates with a comparable education. And by the time a teacher has been working for 15 years, the salary gap has widened to $23,000. So the longer new teachers stay in the profession, the wider the gap between their salaries and those of friends who chose other careers.

But how much teachers are paid is only part of the problem; the current salary schedule is another. It takes a teacher about 20 years to reach the top—$65,000 to $70,000, on average. Young people don’t want to wait 20 years when they could enter another profession and make a comparable salary much sooner, and earn even more as they go on.

To pay teachers a lot more, and a lot sooner in their careers, we would have to redesign the compensation system. Along with significantly raising pay across the board, on top of the current schedules, we would have to find a way to reward different roles, responsibilities, knowledge, skills and, yes, results.

It’s true that teachers themselves have often resisted change. This is not because they find the current system adequate but because a lot of silly things have been proposed to take its place. Traditional merit pay, for example, is a popular idea that sounds good to people who don’t work in schools. It has been tried in a number of districts (contrary to assertions that unions have blocked it), and there is no evidence that it has ever helped in attracting or retaining teachers. For one thing, teachers see merit pay schemes as unfair because “merit” is likely to be based on criteria that are vague and subjective. Teachers also fear that merit pay is offered as a substitute for substantial pay raises, and often it is. Further, although the award that any individual teacher gets is likely to be insignificant, when teachers qualify in any number, school districts often decide the program is too costly, and they close it down.

More recently, because merit pay hasn’t worked, there is talk about “pay for performance.” Some people interpret this as paying teachers on the basis of their students’ test scores. This narrow definition defies common sense, given the complexities of the classroom and the differences among children. But rewarding teachers who significantly raise achievement, either individually or as a team, can work.

The best thinking about teacher compensation recognizes that we can’t look at this question in isolation. We have to see equitable pay for teachers as a part of an effort to support quality teaching and raise student achievement. A good example of this kind of thinking is on view in the Milken Family Foundation’s Teacher Advancement Program (TAP).

TAP varies according to the needs and desires of the schools that elect to use it. However, its cornerstone provisions give teachers a chance to augment their current salaries by qualifying for substantial yearly bonuses of up to $5,000, as well as by taking on new roles and responsibilities as teachers.

Half of the bonus is based on multiple yearly evaluations of the candidate’s skill as a teacher—by the principal and master teachers and peers. The other half, the bonus for student performance, is determined partly by schoolwide student performance and partly by how well the teacher’s own students do.

But you can’t improve teaching merely by offering financial incentives. A crucial part of the TAP program involves weekly professional development sessions led by the teachers. These sessions, which involve the entire teaching staff, are focused on curriculum and issues specific to their school, as well as good teaching practices—all designed to help teachers improve their skills and the learning of their students.

A third basic piece of the TAP program opens up new professional roles for teachers without their having to leave the classroom. Teachers who have, for instance, the skill and experience to participate in evaluating their colleagues or to lead professional development are essential to the success of the program, and TAP recognizes their importance by designating them as senior, master and mentor teachers and by paying them extra for their expertise.

Under the TAP program, teachers who get top marks for their performance and that of their students and who assume extra roles could get as much as $20,000 a year extra, and no teachers will earn less than they did under the old system.

TAP, which is currently being tested in 71 schools in eight states, is not the only game in town and it is not for everybody. It will work best in districts where the salary schedule is already high enough. Some districts will reject it out of hand because they consider the bonuses and augmented salaries too costly—although, of course, any substantial improvement in attracting and retaining competent teachers will involve spending extra money on professional teaching conditions as well as salaries. Others will be put off by the long-term commitment involved and the program’s complexity. They will want to wait to see whether TAP, which is still young and still evolving, can fulfill its promise. But TAP is well worth a look. It exemplifies the principle of putting teacher compensation in the context of improving student achievement, and it offers everyone who is concerned with teacher quality and teacher retention plenty of food for thought.

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