Putting students last by rejecting performance pay

While Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop didn’t greet her state and territory counterparts with the proverbial, “Send in the clowns”, she may as well have, given their rank hypocrisy in rejecting her plans to skew teachers’ pay towards performance and away from length of service.

A big fat “F” is just what state and territory ministers deserve for rejecting the plans. The losers of course, will be school students. They’ll lose twice: first they remain saddled with the current crop of teachers; and second, better quality teachers will continue to be discouraged from entering the profession.

The Bishop Plan could have seen teachers’ pay based on three criteria: an assessment of their work, student exam results and parent feedback. Ms Bishop sought to measure teachers’ performance by their output rather than the traditional input centric yard sticks that to this day, contaminate the public service.

The unstinting devotion state and territory education ministers have to their education union masters was revealed when Victoria’s acting Education Minister Jacinta Allan boasted at the Darwin meeting that “it has been a succession of failures for the federal minister in wanting to progress her agenda”. Perhaps Ms Allan considers the mass exodus of students from the state-based government school systems into non government schools as a ringing endorsement of the public schools system?

While state and territory ministers can’t seem to do the simple maths on performance pay, it is worthwhile to note that the issue got a push forward last year in the United States.

In 2006, a group of educators from both public and private schools, both unionised and non unionised, came together in the belief that teachers needed to be paid differently. They agreed that a well crafted performance-pay system has huge potential to transform the teaching profession in ways that can help all students learn more (Performance Pay for Teachers - Designing a System that Students Deserve).

The group believed that teachers who perform at high levels and spread their expertise to other teachers deserve extra compensation for their performance and accomplishments.

The group’s starting point was that the current, stale half century-old teacher salary pay scale was designed with good reasons in mind: to promote gender equity and to protect teachers from erratic administrators. But it has long passed its use by date.

The study pushed for eight performance pay outcomes:

• that every student deserves a quality teacher;
• strengthen the current pay scales;
• attract talent to the profession;
• encourage every teacher to grow professionally;
• reward teachers based on their ability to help students make significant and measurable academic gains and reward teachers for helping achieve success for all students in a school;
• acknowledge that individual student learning is significantly influenced by more than just an individual teacher;
• provide adequate resources for teachers to do their jobs; and
• appreciate that teachers bring different levels of skills and ability to their work and that some teachers actually outperform others.

These goals were not unique to the study group, but were shown to be shared society wide: from parents and teachers to business leaders, economists and public policy makers.

The facts were ugly: the profession had a high turnover rate and that the best and brightest were not attracted to teaching. Irrespective of their ideological leanings, there was widespread agreement that to ensure a stable, high-quality workforce, teachers need to be paid both more and differently.

The proposed overhaul of teachers’ pay would be accomplished by creating parallel compensation tracks - a base plan and a career plan.

Base-compensation plans should acknowledge that teachers come to the education system with varying levels of expertise.

The base can reflect a particular attribute the school needs, for example particular subject knowledge. Career-compensation plans should build on the base and offer salary top ups in four areas of professional performance: student learning, knowledge and skills, market needs, and leadership. As teachers climb from rung to rung (novice to professional to expert) these top ups must reward teacher accomplishments that are commensurate with each level of career development.

Performance-pay programs would reward teachers when they meet four goals: help students learn more; develop and use relevant new knowledge and skills; meet special needs in the local labour market; and provide school and community leadership for student success. All four are interlocking components and together promote the kind of conduct that produces excellent schools.

1. Help students learn more

No priority is higher than improved student learning. Individual teachers must be accountable for moving specific students forward from where they started. States school systems must focus on the starting line - not just the finish line - when they take a measure of teacher performance. Also, while standardised test scores have a place in the educational accountability constellation, they do not of themselves provide a comprehensive measure of teacher effectiveness.

2. Develop and use relevant new knowledge and skills

Over the years, teaching technologies have changed and the skills to use them effectively have changed. Value adding remuneration schemes must identify a school’s strengths and weaknesses as well as project future needs based on demographic trends. That is to say: what skills will be needed to get future students job-ready.

3. Meet special needs in the local labour market

It is commonplace to think that it is simply higher base salaries that are needed to attract teachers to challenged schools. However, the study found that this is not so. What is needed is a screening to determine whether candidates possess the skills and attitudes associated with teaching success in a particular school.

4. Provide school and community leadership for student success

The research is clear: new teachers who are more motivated and supported stay in teaching longer and are more effective in helping students learn. The financial impact of losing a new teacher is considerable, and involves recruitment, professional development and other replacement costs.

In Australia, as in the United States, a radical change in the compensation system for teachers is an idea well worth seriously exploring.

If the Commonwealth can’t get state and territory ministers on board a pilot program, perhaps Ms Bishop needs to go over the heads of the premiers and state education bureaucracies by appealing directly to teachers. For such courage, she’ll certainly win the hearts and minds of parents nationwide. And a successful trial will no doubt inject some pride into the veins of those public school teachers who long to make a significant difference in the lives of their students.

Last week, at COAG, we saw the Rudd tail brilliantly wagging the eight-limbed state and territory dog. Without a second thought, the states and territories rejected outright a pay-for-performance scheme. Shame.

It seems that the states and territories don’t want to do right by school students, if that means giving the Prime Minister a policy win several months out from an election. The spirit of former Senator Graham Richardson, is alive and well: do whatever it takes to (help Kevin Rudd) win. And pay any price.

Even if that price is the relentless dumbing down of those charged with educating of our young.