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Reviewing the all-too-abbreviated coverage of the candidates' forum in the Madison Daily Leader (and it's not even online!), I notice MDL's Chuck Clement left out the toughest question thrown at the candidates, the one about higher pay for teachers in hard-to-recruit fields like math and science.
Here's the basic premise of field-based pay differentials: suppose you compare two high school teachers, one with a degree in English, another with a degree in computer programming. The computer teacher could probably find a job in her field but outside teaching that pays $51,000. The English major might have trouble finding English-related jobs outside teaching that pay above the $30K's. I'm making up numbers, but I think you can see the general idea: there are certain knowledge areas that have higher demand and thus command higher wages than others.
Our public school districts generally offer increased pay based on years of service and academic degree. Get your master's degree, get more pay. An English teacher and a computer teacher, both with master's degrees, both with, say, eight years of teaching experience, will usually get the same salary. That means the school will face more wage competition from the rest of the labor market to keep its computer teaching than it will in keeping its English teacher.
Now my inner Milton Friedman tells me our schools might have to offer competitive wages in the higher-paying fields. And as a math major now studying information systems, I should be all over higher pay for my particular specializations.
But somehow, I don't like the idea of paying some teachers more than others just because of the fields they teach. If we as a school were to say an English teacher is worth $30K a year while a computer teacher is worth $40K a year, we would be saying, in a way, that the skills taught in the computer classroom are more valuable than the skills taught in the English classroom.
Anyone care to play that game? Anyone care to define, in dollars, which high school course is worth more than another? Or think of it this way: how much is it worth to you that your son be able to speak well, or understand history, or create a spreadsheet, or sing?
I'd like to think that a good computer teacher is just as valuable as a good English teacher, a good history teacher, a good health teacher, or a good music teacher. The labor market might force a different pay scheme on us, but for now, I'd prefer to concentrate on raising pay for all teachers to levels comparable to what other states offer their teachers. We may not be able to compete with Microsoft (or CreditSoup?) for programmers, but we can at least work on being competitive within the education labor market.
Drinking Liberally Update (11/15/2024)
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In Politics: Nationally: The Election is over and the wrong side won. I
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3 days ago
Speaking as a grad of MHS (Class of 67) and as an English major, I support two-tier pay structure for teachers. One is merit pay (how good you are at the job) and the other is market pay (despite Corey's legitimate reservations, we most likely WILL have to pay more to attract a good math teacher than a good assistant track coach these days). It's been a while since I looked, but the State Dept of Education used to keep statistics about how many teachers in SD are teaching subjects in which they do not even have a college minor because the district is unable to attract anyone capable of teaching at the salary level offered. Now go through a middle school and count how many people are teaching academic subjects not because it is their first choice but because it is merely the dues they have to pay to get a coaching job. While I admire the sentimental view that you've expressed here in wishing to avoid market pay, the practical result is scary when you look forward. A wave of our best teachers, who've been carrying the load in chemistry and math and science, is getting ready to retire.
ReplyDeleteMerit pay sounds great until you are in the classroom and realize that there are some kids that will not do what you want and prefer to breathe until they turn 16... or soon 18.
ReplyDeleteBoth Anons offer good observations. Anon1 reads me right: I don't want the free market to force us to create a differential pay scheme that violates my sentiments and ideals. But if the free market buys out all of our science teachers, what will we do?
ReplyDeleteAnon2 hits another nail squarely on the head: in principle, merit pay is a great idea. You do better work, you should get more money. In practice, it's a nightmare: I'm still waiting for someone to map out the fair, objective criteria on which teacher merit pay could be based and which would pass muster with the staff, the board, and the voters. I'm also waiting to learn whom we entrust to apply such criteria and determine who gets the performance bonus. Sometimes good ideas just aren't practical.
Merit pay sounds good, but IMO it will simply be who is the most popular or the best coach of a winning team who will be deemed worthy of merit pay. The best teachers are sometimes the least popular; my daughter told me who she thought was one of the best teachers in her high school career, and it wasn't a popular one. I think the idea of merit pay sounds great, but I also think it has too much potential for major abuse. You can have all the criteria you want, but it still comes down to the subjective application of those criteria by certain people.
ReplyDeleteThe second Anonymous above has a point too. There are some kids who really don't want to be in the traditional school setting, and forcing them to stay until age 18 isn't going to work and will probably cause more problems that it hopes to solve. And then tied to that was cutting funding for Aim High type education. I absolutely can't understand the thinking of our state politicos on this one!
Nonnie
I'm going to have to disagree with paying teachers the same too. When you graduate with a degree in technology the learning doesn't stop when you get your degree. As a technologist, I'm always reading the latest academic papers, technical websites (slashdot.org), and magazines that are related to my field. In fact, in order to qualify for most jobs in the networking field, you must not only have a degree but some sort of specialization and certifications. With an english degree you don't have that as much because there are no major breakthroughs in the fields of reading and writing. I also disagree that because a teacher has been around more means they need more money. This really hurts school districts because there is less money in hiring new (and usually more technically inclined)teachers. That's why I'm left with scores for standardized tests. The better your students school - the better your salary. I know I'm a lefty leaning right but it makes sense to me.
ReplyDeleteYou're asking for a pretty hard paradigm shift from the education establishment, Beckster. But suppose we follow your logic. What happens if we create a differential pay scale based on ongoing training and learning and your English teacher comes up and shows you the reams of journals she's been reading on new research on teaching reading, vocabulary retention, and improved writing techniques? How do you quantify the dollar value of that professional development and improvement in classroom performance in comparison to the improvement in your performance as a technologist from reading your specialization's literature? (I'm not saying it's impossible -- I'm genuinely curious how you would work out that pay scale.)
ReplyDeleteI agree Cory. It doesn't make sense to pay a teacher based on what it is they are teaching. What about a teacher that has the education to teach math and computer programming for instance? That could cause some major competition to occur in our schools.
ReplyDelete