A revolutionary approach to teacher pay in Denver

June 7, 2003

The research group Public Agenda consistently offers insightful studies of education, and its latest report is a winner. Stand by Me draws out teachers' views of the policies that shape their professional lives -- what they think about certification, standardized testing and more.

Teachers in the survey are fiercely loyal to their profession, Public Agenda found, but at the same time they are well aware of flaws in the system. And they are open to changing it, providing they can see their way clear to a better way of doing things (see publicagenda.org on the Web).

That's an encouraging sign for Denver, where the administration of Denver Public Schools and the leadership of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association are working toward a new contract embodying what they see as, indeed, a better way of doing things. And in turn, if the contract is approved in Denver next March, it would be a national model.

Most teacher contracts establish a basic salary grid based on years of experience and number of graduate credits. Individual teachers move one step to the right each year they teach, and up to a higher line when they complete a certain amount of graduate work.

No rewards for superior performance, no incentives to choose more challenging schools or students, no distinction between hard-to-fill and easy-to-fill positions. And -- once you run out of steps, which often happens in 15 years or less -- no possibility of advancement unless you leave teaching for administration or another career entirely.

Why would professionals want to work under such circumstances, if they had a choice? Yes, it's certainly free of any taint of personal favoritism, but that's about the only good thing it has going for it. In other professions, people accept the risk that they will now and again encounter a bad manager, or be unfairly treated, in return for the opportunity to be compensated according to their accomplishments.

In the abstract, teachers responding to Public Agenda are very skeptical about merit pay. By nearly 2-to-1, 52 percent to 23 percent, they say "principals would play favorites" rather than that merit pay "would give principals a way to reward the teachers who really help kids learn." And by nearly 3-to-1, 63 percent to 22 percent, they say merit pay would cause "unhealthy competition and jealousy among teachers" instead of "teachers would be motivated to work harder and find ways to be more effective."

But get down to specifics about financial incentives, and the survey respondents are more positive. Majorities favored offering financial incentives for teachers who:

* Work in tough neighborhoods with low-performing schools.

* Consistently work harder, putting in more time and effort than other teachers.

* Teach difficult classes with hard-to-reach students.

* Consistently receive outstanding evaluations by their principals.

* Receive accreditation from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

Only 42 percent favored paying more for hard-to-fill subjects. "Teachers aren't managing the system," Public Agenda said, "so they are not thinking in terms of making supply meet demand through differential pricing."

The least favored option was offering more pay to "teachers whose kids routinely score higher than similar students on standardized tests."

That drew only 38 percent approval -- but given how unpopular standardized tests are, that's higher than I would have expected. As one teacher in a St. Louis focus group said, "I think the idea sounds wonderful, I just don't know how you can pull it off."

For a slightly different question, referring to rewards for "more academic progress" rather than "standardized tests," opinion was evenly divided, as it was also for a question about measuring how much progress students make in a year.

The Denver negotiators hope to sweep away the lock-step grid, and replace it with a schedule that rewards people for choosing to do what the district most needs to have done -- attracting experienced and effective teachers to the most challenging schools, for instance, or filling vacancies in subjects that are most in demand.

Bonuses for outstanding performance would be earned gradually over several years, but would also decline over several years if performance started to slip, rather than being permanently reflected in base salary.

Since resentment against colleagues who are "just going through the motions" is widespread -- four out of five survey respondents said there were teachers like that in their building -- that should be popular with teachers who know they work hard and are rightly proud of their success.

A contract along these lines would revolutionize teaching as a career, and make it more attractive to people who don't want to spend their lives in lock step. Public Agenda's results suggest there are a lot of them.