Some clarity needed on teacher pay debate
Monday, January 14, 2008Written by: Uncle Charley
PolEconEd is perplexed about claims of teacher union political power when a new survey shows Colorado ranks low in teacher pay:
Given all of the recent fuss about the governor and possible government worker power, and about teachers unions as mighty players in blocking important school reforms, wouldn’t we expect Colorado’s teachers to receive higher relative wages than their counterparts in the 41 states above them, if they are so powerful?
Then commenter Quique chips in with some ideological snark:
But, Pol Econ Ed, I think you’ve overlooked the obvious response of the union-bashers: “Of course teacher unions are mighty players in Colorado. All this shows is that the unions are even mightier in other states.” Like all true believers, union bashers are impervious to mere facts.
Quique’s hypothetical “union-basher” is partially right: the survey is a relative comparison among states. The trend is that states in which the union has acquired greater monopoly legal protections tend to have slightly or somewhat higher relative teacher pay.
But might I also suggest another way to look at the apparent conundrum from a broader national perspective. Per-pupil spending has nearly tripled in real spending in recent decades, but during the same time average annual teacher pay has changed little compared to inflation (though these analyses usually don’t take into account retirement pension earnings). If the expansion of teacher unionization has brought home only marginally better pay to the rank-and-file, despite a significant growth of system-wide funding, it appears the union has really accomplished nothing.
Yet that assumption causes some observers to look at the matter the wrong way. In the past 40-plus years, some of the spending increase has gone to meet various bureaucratic demands but much of it has gone to increase the size of the teaching workforce relative to the student population. The average individual teacher gets paid little more nowadays, but the aggregate teaching workforce earns significantly more. And more teachers means more union members, as well as more agency fee payers in states where unions have lobbied successfully for greater monopoly control over the profession.
Negotiating for significant individual pay raises is not the organization’s highest priority. Officials typically first look to maintain their budget by keeping the membership numbers up and their status by working to put legal security in place. But they also have to address the tension on the other end from individual members’ expectations and demands: among whom younger teachers especially are concerned about higher take-home pay. To remain vital, officials also need to perpetuate the image of fighting against nefarious forces, which given the context may include stingy school district officials (and sometimes the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy).
Especially in a state like Colorado, where membership is optional for teachers, union officials need to be successful enough in winning pay increases for their members that they can brag about their effectiveness. Yet on the other hand, officials lack sufficient incentive to win pay raises so high that they become victims of their own success. This dynamic is less a factor in states with negotiated union security and maintenance of membership – states like Rhode Island, Montana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Alaska, which rank near the top of the relative pay chart.
However, the debate over comparing the compensation of teachers and non-teachers is a matter of great unresolved controversy, for a reason that the Education Intelligence Agency has well identified:
Because of the way collective bargaining agreements are structured, both sides are correct in the teacher pay debate. For the hours and days they are contractually obligated to work, teachers are compensated at a rate above that of most other professions, just as the Manhattan Institute reports. However, the contract tacitly acknowledges that teachers perform work beyond that required in the contract, for which no compensation is demanded or paid. Thus, on an annual basis, teacher pay lags behind other professions.
So we can argue until we’re blue in the face about the level of teacher pay (and some people seem perfectly eager to do so), but the reason the comparisons to other professions are all flawed is because teachers’ work days, work years, and salary structure are unique. When it comes to pay, in the private sector and most of the public sector, you’re either a clock-puncher or you’re not. In public education, you’re both.
The Quality Counts survey hardly has the final word on sweeping questions of teacher pay. Some teachers are overpaid, some teachers are underpaid. Yet the system by and large isn’t constructed to reward them with incentives for success. Maybe, just maybe – as I’ve written before – reformers should consider advocating a reduction of the teaching workforce so we can afford to reward quality teaching effectively, a more efficient way to yield good results.
September 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
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