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Examining Sensationalized Teacher Pay
Most free newspapers in Washington, D.C. are full of drab political fare, but the sensationalist cover of last Monday's Examiner caught the attention of Ed Money Watch.
Featuring the image of a golden apple being handed from one person to another, the cover has an all-caps headline that reads: "LOCAL TEACHERS ARE CASHING IN." We were intrigued by the article's content. A scandal involving misappropriated funds? An overly large salary increase won by the teachers unions?
Not even close. It turns out the article, "Cashing in on the Classroom," is about the fewer than 300 teachers in local counties who have earned above $100,000 this year. Such figures are sure to fuel arguments made by conservative publications that teachers aren't underpaid, but in fact earn more than many other skilled professions.
But how are these high-paid teachers raking in such large salaries? As the article notes, "No one on most local salary schedules can make $100,000 without extended schedules." Instead, teachers take on substantial additional responsibilities, such as leading extra classes, mentoring, or administrative tasks. For example, the Examiner highlights the case of Susan Socha, a teacher with 40 years of experience who made over $100,000 this year. How did Socha do it? In addition to her general duties, she "teaches algebra online, leads continuing education classes for teachers and runs an online summer school math program."
Socha's story appears to be consistent with those of other high-earning teachers -- they all took on substantial additional work, for which they were compensated. It's no different than if they had taken on second positions as lab technicians, waiters, or other jobs -- a trend that appears to be growing nationally.
While the number of teachers in the area making substantial salaries may be increasing - something the Examiner asserts but doesn't substantiate -- percentage-wise, it's still a very small group. Just 1.26 percent of Montgomery County's 11,486 teachers cross the $100,000 mark, compared with no more than 1.18 percent of Prince George's County's 8,395 teachers. A small group of individuals with decades of experience making large salaries would be expected in any comparable profession, so why should the case of a few teachers be front page news?
If anything, the story here should be that high-performing teachers don't have more opportunities to earn large salaries without taking on substantial additional responsbilities. Enhancing the rewards for high-performing teachers is the idea behind plans such as Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's Career Ladder Initiative and the Denver public school system's ProComp, a performance pay initiative that provides bonsues for effective teachers who also engage in certain professional development activities. But even under ProComp's salary calculator, a teacher with a doctorate and more than a decade of experience working in a high-need subject in a high-need school won't cross the $100,000 mark until the 2014-2015 school year.
Effective teachers do much more than put in 40 hours a week over the course of nine months. It's time to find ways to properly reward that hard work, rather than running sensationalized headlines decrying the few who receive the compensation they deserve.
You Have Got to be Kidding
Such figures are sure to fuel arguments made by conservative publications that teachers aren't underpaid, but in fact earn more than many other skilled professions.
I am astonished and outraged that you can so snidely and callously dismiss the obvious. Are we expected to believe that teachers making near six-digit salaries, plus health, the most liberal vacation benefits in the world, plus guaranteed pensions are STILL CRYING ABOUT BEING UNDERPAID!
Please tell me this is a bad joke. In the private sector of this economy professionals of all kinds are experiencing deflation of salaries, benefits, loss of vacation and savings, and get no pensions.
When is the last time your lowest paid teachers missed a paycheck?
The spiraling cost of education - the lion's share which is benefits to teachers and staff - NOT KIDS - is out of control.
I am a taxpayer. I am a parent. I AM A LIBERAL.
The apple these teachers are receiving isn't gold, it is platinum.
- Frank Krasicki
http://region19.blogspot.com
Questions for Frank
Frank Krasicki, just a couple of questions?
1) Where do you live? Try living in places like Washington KS or Drexel MO. If you are a liberal, then I could make the faulty assumption that you are well educated and should know that the east and west coasts of the US are almost a seperate country than the rest of us when you are looking at cost of living and salaries.
2) What do you want school boards to spend money on? How do they spend it on kids only? What would any industry look like if their #1 expense was not on labor?
3) Where would you like to send your children to be educated: Mexico, China, Vietnam, etc? Becuase this is how private industry keeps costs down.
4) If a machinist with Boeing (no college degree) can make twice the average salary of a KS teacher should you be upset if they are striking for more salary and benefits (even in this economy)?
5) Teacher have no better vacation benefits than many European workers have (although the Euros are starting to require more hours per week and less vacation). Many Euro countries require by law 25 vacation days as a minimum (not including holidays). Are these workers not in this world?
All right this one is a stretch, but I was trying to hit on all of your astonished outrages. I will give you than probably only Denmark has better vacation benefits that teachers (on average 31 days per year with statuatory holidays not counted).
6) How about accepting that all school boards control salaries of teachers and all school boards are locally controlled? If you have a problem with how your school board is spending your tax money, run for it and make a change. Some teachers are overpaid even in the lowest paying districts and some teachers are underpaid in the highest paid districts. Thus is the case in a socialized industry that is not allowed to reflect market demands.
Improving pay for deserving teachers
Placing almost exclusive emphasis upon test-score improvement as a basis for rewarding teachers is patently unfair and, when coupled with inadequate performance-appraisal systems, drives teachers toward unethical behavior or departure to other pursuits.
A primary reason the public has not been more supportive of higher funding for education has been the poor relationship between better funding and higher educational quality as revealed by a number of studies.
Use of an appraisal system based upon the following guidelines should go a long way toward turning things around.
Those associated with schools, need to fairly identify true "stars" and "inadequate performers" as one of the bases for:
justifying good pay for outstanding teachers,
providing for self-guidance on the part of newcomers and present staff,
and providing an important basis for terminating those who cannot, or will not, measure up.
Research findings show that evaluators achieve much better agreement about who are Stars and Inadequate Performers than they do about who are Average, Above-Average, and Below-Average performers. Yet, placing individuals in the middle-three categories is a time-consuming, often arbitrary, and resentment-causing activity that most evaluators dislike having to do. Also, clearly, an average performer in a superior organization deserves much more recognition than an average performer in an inferior one. No wonder that many teachers and their unions oppose conventional merit-rating systems!
To avoid a popularity contest, assure greater fairness, and provide for constructive self-guidance, there should be behavioral documentation for both Star and Inadequate Performer nominations via the Critical Incident Technique.
To lay the groundwork for this, students, parents, veteran administrators, and experienced teachers should be polled at to what specific, observable behaviors they associate with outstanding and inadequate performance for each important aspect of a teacher's job.
Then, required behavioral documentation for Star and Inadequate-Performer nominations from fellow teachers, adminstrators, students, and parents should be based upon the most agreed-upon behaviors, and the agreed-to relative weights that should be assigned to these.
The results of this analysis can also constructively guide the initial training and subsequent selection of teachers, as well as, provide a much-needed, qualifying context for the currently over-stressed evaluation factor of test-score-improvement.
This approach also sets the stage for more productive review sessions between the rater and ratee. Since the ratee has a sound basis for self-rating, the session should start with the rater asking "How do you rate yourself for this past period through the presentation of relevant, supporting behaviors?" No rater can be all-knowing, so if behaviors are mentioned that she or he is not aware of, the rater can postpone giving his or her evaluation to provide time to check out the validity of the assertions, if this seems necessary.
A sound behavioral basis for rating also facilitates the use of motivational goal setting during the review session. For example, if the ratee wants to be a Star, what specific behavioral goals does she or he plan to adopt by such and such a time? If stardom is not the goal, which specific, Inadequate Performer behaviors will he or she need to avoid?
This approach permits a rater to be more of a counselor and coach, than one who appears to sit in arbitrary judgment.
For discussion of relevant research and related citations, see: "Improving Performance Appraisal Systems" by William M. Fox, NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY REVIEW, Winter 1987-88, pages 20-27.
William Fox
gryfox@bellsouth.net
Professor Emeritus
Department of Management
University of Florida
(352) 376-9786
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