Pay Teachers More

Just because it's difficult to find out doesn't mean we shouldn't try. No performance system is perfect but by at least trying to figure it out we'll have a better system than we have now.

I, for one, know which of my prior teachers have been good and which haven't and most of my classmates would agree. Asking former students may be one idea although it's a pretty slow feedback cycle. You wouldn't be able to ask students immediately after the year is over since it would probably be correlated to the grade they received but years down the line people would have a pretty good sense of who the good teachers they had were.

One can also have former teachers monitor more as well as have more frequent observation sessions.

I'm sure there are tons of ideas people have and it's important to choose the best ones but none of this is going to happen until we make it a point to pay for performance.

In a way, it's similar to startups - you don't know what the final product is and you can always improve but it's important to start in order to get the feedback, learn from it, and iterate on the product.

Presumably better teachers would be able to actually, well, teach not just babysit. And if they can teach better that will produce better quality talent in the future, right? And then society can be better off. It's tough for those children to become doctors without a good education. And in the long run you'll end up with an entire society of incompetent doctors without good teachers.

I just got a part time job teaching college algebra at a school that mostly teaches nursing and massage therapy. The pay is ok.

The reason I got the job is that the state and regional accreditation boards require that anyone teaching college level courses must have a Masters degree and at least 18 graduate credit hours in the subject.

The previous teacher they had to let go has a bachelor's in math. I've got an M.S. in EE. I sat in on his classes my first few days on the job; he's an excellent teacher.

So what ended up happening is this school, which can't afford to pay much, now can't find anyone with an M.S. who's willing to teach algebra full-time. (surprise, surprise)

While the board has the intention to raise the standard for algebra teachers, the rules have the opposite effect since they limit so strictly who can teach that the schools have to hire anyone who meets the criteria whether they're good or not.

It's not so much the pay but the unbelievable amount of hoops you have to jump through to teach. I'm sure a lot of smart people would love to teach part-time if it didn't take years to get certified.

Which chart? They are numbered, you know.

[edit: I'm guessing you are referring to chart 6, but that data is restricted to "days when they did at least some work".]

Before you get worked up over this topic, realize that there are some teachers who are exceptional and others that are quite bad.

The main difference between teaching and other fields is that once a teacher is hired, it's very unlikely he/she will ever be fired for poor performance.

As a result, many schools contain both a few exceptional teachers and a few real duds. Sadly, the exceptional teachers are paid based on seniority just like the duds are, and some duds have been there a long time and are earning decent salaries and very generous pensions.

I don't think anyone would object to paying exceptional teachers more... the problem is that we all know of some really horrible, lazy teachers whom it would be a travesty to pay more.

Sure, if someone waved a wand and doubled teacher salaries, the quality of new teachers entering the profession would increase, but this would not address the vast majority of existing teachers.

It's not complicated... the only reason any firm is able to hire and retain skilled employees is because skill is rewarded compared to mediocrity. This is not the case for teachers, except in the form of non-monetary rewards (often exceptional teachers are greatly respected, but this doesn't pay the bills).

As long as we pay teachers based on seniority and other backward measures, we'll have people who are just not cut out for teaching responsible for educating our children.

I'm not advocating any sort of across the board measurement of what constitues success. This should vary by district. The important thing is that just like any other profession some people should fail to make the cut and should find work they are better suited for. As it stands, we give these people an incentive to continue teaching our children. It's no wonder they resort to trying to strengthen their union... they certainly aren't getting any rewards from being bad at what they do.

Note, I'm talking about the 20% of teachers who could be considered poor. I'm not all that concerned about the ones who are average or above average, since they are not the problem.

The issue of pay is a red herring, btw.