New Athenian Academy

Teacher salaries are a touchy subject.   What is the appropriate salary for a teacher?  Unfortunately there are many sides to this particular debate.  Let’s take a look.

Current Averages/Starting

The current national average for teachers is around $52,00.  Starting salaries average $32,000.  Now those don’t sound too horrible.  I am okay with the starting salaries and the average.  But do others feel the same way?

Pay Scales

For most districts, pay is based on experience.  And I am not talking about real experience.  I am talking about the amount of years you are physically in the building.  So a 15 year teacher obviously makes more than a 4 year teacher.  But is this the best way to set up a pay scale?  Just because a teacher has taught for 20 years doesn’t mean they have been learning and growing for those 20 years.  I have seen incompetent teachers who made more than $30,000 than me, but only because they were 20 years older.  It had nothing to do with their competence as a teacher.  This just makes me very angry.  I want competent teachers, not teachers who have stuck it out for 20 years.

In a recent conversation, I asked a friend for examples of other industries that use physical years as a pay scale.  He came up with the following: military, government, the auto industry.  Look into these industries.  I have a feeling you will find the pay scale to be completely out of whack with the competence level of the various employees. I’m glad it’s not just the teaching industry, but sad that many industries employ this metric.

In general we are promoting mediocrity among teachers.  A teacher wants to find the best way to do the least but still enough to get to the next year and pay level.  The pay scale does not reward innovation or punish incompetence.  Instead we promote mediocrity.  So clearly the pay scales do not work.

Reform Ideas — More or Less?

Many have advocated less pay.  Teachers get more time off.  They get breaks.  It’s an easy profession, right?  All we do is sit around and have students do worksheets.  Any monkey could do that.  So we shouldn’t be paying teachers very much at all.

The other side advocates paying teachers more.  They are taking care of our children.  They are leading the next generation to take over the country.  They are many roles in one.  Every teacher should make $100,000.  They need more compensation.

Each side is right to a certain extent.  But they are missing the point.  We don’t need more or less money, but a better allocation of money.  Let’s radically change our pay scales.  The best and most misunderstood idea…

Performance Based Reviews

We need to talk a look at the actions of teachers.  Good teachers should be paid more, bad teachers less.  Simple idea, but one that has led to a disastrous reform idea.  Performance based review should not be based on standardized test scores.  Some districts have entertained this idea, but their actions are misguided.  Standardized test scores tell us little to nothing about the teacher in the classroom.  There are too many variables to test results. Did the student get sleep the night before?  Is the test valid and reliable? Does the school not have heat and therefore students are learning in 40 degree classrooms? Is the student already learning 3 levels behind but has made progress this year, but the test does not account for the progress? None of these things are taken into account with a resulting test score.  And that’s the problem.  Test scores are only one piece of the puzzle.

If you ask parents, I would doubt they would reply “Higher standardized test scores” when you ask “What do you expect from your child’s teacher this year?”  I hope that parents understand that teaching is not just test scores.  It’s guiding the children on the path of knowledge.

Anyway…. What’s a better way to evaluate teachers for  a performance review?  Many other ways.  Let’s start with a basic performance review.  Remember when you worked your minimum wage job back in high school.  I worked at a grocery store and every month they would review performance.  Was my draw even?  Did I receive any customer complaints or compliments?  Did I ever skip work or was last to my shift?  What was my general attitude during my shifts?  Based on the results, I was rewarded with a  raise or given ways  to improve my performance.  I am assuming that after a certain number of bad performance reviews, I would have been fired.  (But of course, I never had a bad performance review as a grocery store cashier, so I don’t actually know)

Why can’t we apply the same idea to teaching?  Every quarter or semester or year teachers could be given a performance review.  The review determines if teachers are given a raise, kept at the same pay level, or possibly fired.  I realize that this would take a lot of initial planning and implementation, but in the long run, the best teachers would be rewarded and the worst punished.  Pay would then be based on competence, not time alive.  A radical restructuring of the pay scales for teachers would make a positive impact on our schools.  We could slowly rebuild the system, but it would take a commitment and a change in direction.  A change that is sorely needed.

Personally I would have no issue with true performance based salaries.  I am confident that any committed teacher would welcome the change and flourish under the new system.  Bad teachers would be warned to improve and if they didn’t, fired.  It seems like a win-win situation.

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Education Problems by Tobe