Let's take teacher pay off the table
Published April 25, 2014
By Tom Campbell
by Tom Campbell, Executive Producer and Moderator, NC SPIN, April 24, 2014.
Just when we might be ready to engage in productive discussions about creating world-class schools in North Carolina another distraction arises. Drop-out rates, common core, testing, charter schools, vouchers….all no doubt worthy of some discussion, but none alone are the panacea to creating and sustaining the best public education system.
Consider teacher pay. We have devoted far too much time and energy to this subject for too many years and it is painfully obvious that neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to get beyond this issue. Democrats paid lip service to better teacher salaries, even made strides at doing so some years back, but their rhetoric has been more impressive than their record. Republicans, on the other hand, seem to have used teachers as the whipping boy for their disgust over the almost total support teacher and education groups have given Democrats.
It is time to take teacher pay off the table.
Let’s all agree that if North Carolina is to have a world-class education system we must begin with world-class teachers. Aside from the parent it is universally agreed that the teacher is the single most important person in a child’s education. But is there evidence to prove that teaching excellence and teacher pay track together?
There are studies showing they don’t correlate, however no one can argue that to have top quality professionals we must pay them well. We certainly aren’t currently compensating our teachers well, which likely explains why some flee to other states or change careers.
For the sake of discussion let us ponder what would happen if North Carolina declared we want nothing less than world-class teachers and we are committed to paying them the best salaries in the nation? Assuming the laws of supply and demand hold true the best and brightest teachers in this country would clamor to come teach in North Carolina.
But we can’t afford it, legislators and the administrative branch will say. Bullfeathers. In fiscal year 2012-13, North Carolina appropriated 37 percent of our almost 21 billion dollar budget or about 7.5 billion dollars to k-12 public education. We spend 8,400 dollars per pupil. Assuming the average class size of 28 we are currently investing 235,200 dollars in each classroom. Now we don’t understand new math but it seems inconceivable that somehow in this 7 billion dollar budget we should be able to find the funds to compensate our 96,000 teachers better, since they are admittedly the most important person in the education process. Let’s put first things first.
Now if we are going to pay the best we must demand the best performance and here is where we face the real test. The stumbling block appears to focus around how to identify teaching excellence and how to evaluate teachers. Surely some other states or nations have faced this problem and found acceptable solutions.
This is far too important an issue to allow continuing as it has for the past several decades. It is time to stop talking about teacher pay and resolve this issue so we can move on to other substantive factors in creating excellent schools, schools that prepare our children with the skills needed in the marketplace and the ability to enjoy life.
April 25, 2014 at 8:23 am
TPWohlford says:
Education, along with Corrections, is one of the largest stacks of cash that a State can actually control. The rest tends to be pass-thrus and mandates and such, coming mostly from Fed funds with Fed strings attached.
Also "children" are great election year props, and target the heart strings of voters in a way that very little else (on the state level) can do.
So it's small wonder that both sides use "education" as a political football, and small wonder that teachers get caught up as "useful fools."
IF the author is suggesting that we take education off of the political table, I'd applaud that. I'm thinking that what he wants to do is to take it off of the table by having the GOP give up on everything they're trying to do, which means that this would be more of the same. And of course, more of the same results, 'cause nothing either side proposes will solve the real issues in NC education.
(If you're wondering about that last line... educational outcome is a function of the values and attitudes and actions of the local community that sends the students and hires the staff. If you don't change that, you won't change the outcome.)
April 25, 2014 at 8:58 am
Richard Bunce says:
What we need are world class students... something the government education system dominated by the government education industrial complex is incapable of producing. Education vouchers for relatively low income parents to give them the same choices that relatively high income parents, including elected officials, government education bureaucrats,government school administrators/teachers, have for their children.
April 25, 2014 at 12:24 pm
mike armstrong says:
You are so right. There has been enough discussion about the state of education. First priority is to evaluate our goals and methods of reaching them .What worked for our grandparents might not work today.
1- Why does world class education, whatever that means, have to be "PUBLIC' education? Have we not learned the hard way that government is not an effective or efficient manager? 2- If more than enough money is spent in education and teachers are not being paid enough, we have a management problem, not a more money problem.3- In some countries, teaching is a chosen and respected profession, while in the US, teaching is often a fall0back employment opportunity of last resort. Why do we let poor quality teachers teach? Finally, why do we resist innovation, competition and choice participating in the process? To be practical in today's world, education should be wide open to innovation, free of centralized control and concentrated on vocational education. Let parents and families take care of pre-K and let private colleges and universities educate the adult population.The rest is easy.
April 25, 2014 at 2:17 pm
James Barrett says:
Uh, because we'd be violating the NC Constitution if we did that. Never mind that private institutions have never been shown to scale to serve all well (private bureaucracy is no better than public at scale).
April 25, 2014 at 6:05 pm
Richard Bunce says:
Parents can decide which education system best serves their children and the NC Constitution will be fine with that. Who says one alternate school system would replace the one government school system? Let the parents find the best school system for their children as many relatively wealthy parents already do.
April 25, 2014 at 2:36 pm
James Barrett says:
"Surely some other states or nations have faced this problem and found acceptable solutions."
The answer for states is surely not. Evaluation and "performance pay" plans have failed over and over again in the US. For other nations, there are certainly differences, but they mostly rest in significantly increasing pay, which increases the quality of people who enter the profession (ie, in the US, education students (aka teachers) generally come from the bottom half of their classes, while in some other countries, high pay means they are picking from the top students).
If you truly want a solution that benefits all students, it takes work to get there. Work that is very hard in the political climate we have (look at the comments on this post and see that we have people that don't even believe we should be doing this). One solution I am very interested in as a non-ideological possibility is http://opportunityculture.org. In Charlotte today, it is delivering higher quality instruction without spending more total $.
April 25, 2014 at 5:54 pm
Wayne Rivers says:
A tried and true liberal solution: "let's throw more money down the rathole of public education." Has anyone anywhere ever demonstrably proved there is a link between high teacher pay in public schools and high student achievement ?
Mike Armstrong nailed it above. Can't improve on his answer. We need COMPETITION in k-12 education, not more expensive mediocrity.
April 25, 2014 at 10:57 pm
Henry Belada says:
Tom, once again give all state workers a pay raise. Plus give the retiree one also. They help build this great state for all of us. My wife is a retire teacher.
April 29, 2014 at 1:38 pm
Baker A Mitchell says:
The traditional public system has plenty of money to compensate teachers in very good style.
Compared to surrounding public schools, a charter school is producing positive test results at half the cost.
April 30, 2014 at 11:40 am
Richard Bunce says:
That would cut into the football stadium budget... priorities.
