Teachers

Last week Congress passed legislation reauthorizing the Higher Education Act (HEA), the federal law that authorizes student aid programs that help students pay for higher education. Our colleagues at New America have written and length about both positive and negative changes in the law’s higher education provisions. But the new law Congress passed last week also includes important steps to improve the quality of teacher preparation and training for early childhood educators.

Most free newspapers in Washington, D.C. are full of drab political fare, but the sensationalist cover of last Monday's Examiner caught the attention of Ed Money Watch.

Featuring the image of a golden apple being handed from one person to another, the cover has an all-caps headline that reads: "LOCAL TEACHERS ARE CASHING IN." We were intrigued by the article's content. A scandal involving misappropriated funds? An overly large salary increase won by the teachers unions?

Not even close. It turns out the article, "Cashing in on the Classroom," is about the fewer than 300 teachers in local counties who have earned above $100,000 this year. Such figures are sure to fuel arguments made by conservative publications that teachers aren't underpaid, but in fact earn more than many other skilled professions.

But how are these high-paid teachers raking in such large salaries? As the article notes, "No one on most local salary schedules can make $100,000 without extended schedules." Instead, teachers take on substantial additional responsibilities, such as leading extra classes, mentoring, or administrative tasks. For example, the Examiner highlights the case of Susan Socha, a teacher with 40 years of experience who made over $100,000 this year. How did Socha do it? In addition to her general duties, she "teaches algebra online, leads continuing education classes for teachers and runs an online summer school math program."

The Washington Post reports that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is taking steps to end teacher seniority preferences in the District's teachers union contract, as part of ongoing contract negotiations with the Washington Teachers' Union. This is an important, and contentious, teacher pay reform that holds promise for reversing inequitable teacher distribution patterns between low- and high-poverty schools in the district.

Within-District Teacher Disparities

Seniority preferences allow teachers with the most experience to transfer to any open teaching position in a district, which means the most experienced teachers tend to gravitate to the lowest-poverty schools and those with with the most ideal teaching conditions. This leaves the highest poverty schools, with the neediest students, with teaching staffs composed largely of rookie teachers.

Differentiated teacher pay is gaining in popularity among education reformers and policymakers. Currently, most teachers are paid under single salary schedules that take into account only two teacher attributes: years of experience and education credentials. Differentiated pay reforms give teachers more money based a wider variety of factors, such as teaching assignments, skills, or performance. Some teachers and teachers unions, however, are reluctant to embrace non-traditional financial incentives. This opposition is often viewed as an insurmountable obstacle to teacher reform.

But it's simply not true that teachers monolithically oppose all types of differentiated pay. While tying pay to student test scores remains unpopular with teachers, many support other types of financial incentives. And according to a recent teacher survey  from Education Sector, teacher attitudes about differentiated pay reforms have become more positive in recent years, particularly among younger teachers.

We've spent a lot of time over the past two weeks talking about the Democratic presidential candidates' early education agendas, so today we're going to devote some time to the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain. So far, McCain hasn't said much about education issues, and hasn't offered any sort of education policy agenda. That's hardly surprising, as McCain has never been particularly involved on education issues in the Senate, and education issues were not a major issue in the Republican primary campaign. Richard Whitmire reports that McCain's advisors are about to start unrolling a series of education proposals-but predicts they won't include a significant early education component.

There are lots of good reasons for McCain's advisors to incorporate an early education component in the education agenda they're formulating. For starters, it would be counterintuitive, and it would also help cast a more positive light on some of the areas where McCain is weaker.

Further, it's probably easier for Republican politicians to support innovative ideas on early education than on K-12 reform right now. Conventional wisdom within the pundit class holds that teachers unions make it difficult for Democrats to advance compelling school reform ideas. But the politics of school reform are equally fraught for many Republicans. The conservative base loathes NCLB with a passion to rival that of the most strident teacher unionist and strongly opposes any expansion of the feds' role in schooling. Moderate Republicans know that the suburban parents they represent aren't thrilled by NCLB or reforms that might shake up a status quo that works pretty well for them now. And, as the Sol Stern controversy demonstrates, the conservative constituency for education reform is increasingly divided between choice-niks who think vouchers are the only answer, and devotees of curricular reform. In other words, for a politician who's never evinced a particular passion for education issues, the waters can't look too appealing in K-12 reform.

Efforts to improve quality in early education frequently focus on raising requirements for pre-k teachers—to a BA or certification in early education. That’s a good thing, because teacher quality is key to high-quality early education, and the discrepancy that currently exists between standards for K-12 and pre-k teachers in many states, or between pre-k teachers in different settings, undermines quality early education. But policymakers must be thoughtful in how they implement new early education credential requirements.