Top pay for top teachers: getting and keeping top teachers may depends on how we pay them.

• Author: Exstrom, Michelle

For as long as most can remember, teachers have been paid the same as their colleagues with the same education and experience, whether they are good or bad. Exceptional teachers who inspire students to learn and grow bring home the same pay check as others whose students make little or no progress. Often there is no extra compensation for teaching poor, at-risk students or traditionally hard-to-staff subjects like special education, math and science. All teachers move up the single salary schedule at the same pace.

For years teachers were, and a good number still are, content with this system. They argue that teaching is different from other professions that thrive with competition. In those professions, variable pay creates competition among employees, which ultimately drives them to work smarter and harder. But many teachers argue that teaching is different because teamwork is an important key to success. They predict that when teachers compete for pay, it interferes with collaboration that is so important for student and teacher success. Representative Bill Thompson of South Dakota, a veteran teacher, agrees. "Nothing helped me more during my first few years of teaching than my unofficial mentors. Performance pay would hurt that process."

Over the past decade, however, researchers, policy experts and educators alike have begun questioning the wisdom of the traditional single salary schedule for teachers in light of recent research. Calls for reform come from respected education researchers such as Allan Odden at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; businessmen such as Louis Gerstner, Jr., former head of IBM and the Teaching Commission; policy experts such as Theodore Hershberg at the University of Pennsylvania; and some educators from cities like Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Denver. They argue that it makes good sense to do all that we can to get and keep top teachers--those who really make a difference--by reforming the way we pay them.

State policymakers are calling for reform, too. Just in the past two years, governors from California, Delaware, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Texas have pushed for teachers to be compensated based on knowledge, skills and performance. State legislatures in Florida, Iowa, Minnesota and Texas have, in fact, enacted legislation establishing teacher performance pay programs within local school districts and allocated state funding to support those efforts.

WHY NOW?

Why, after all these years, is now the time for a new approach? Over the past decade, numerous research studies have shown that teaching quality is the most important school-related factor in improving student achievement. With this information, policymakers can now be more confident that policies that help schools to get and keep good teachers will result in better student achievement.

And we must improve student achievement to succeed in the 21st century global economy. An achievement gap stubbornly persists in the nation's schools, where poor students and students of color lag behind. Recent national test results confirm that student achievement in key areas, such as math and reading, has remained relatively flat over the past decade. The nation's business community and math, science and technology experts all are increasingly concerned about this trend...