Finding a Way to Pay Teachers More and Set Standards

Los Angeles teachers want a raise. Not only do they teach under conditions that are as challenging as anywhere in the country, they have yet to recover from wage cuts inflicted during the state’s recession of the early 1990s.

Understandably, the district wants something out of the deal too. It wants at least some of any pay raise to be tied to improved outcomes for kids. But linking pay to performance in education is not straightforward as it is in business. You can’t simply pay teachers a commission for every SAT score above 1,200 or for every third-grader who can read chapter books.

What school districts can do, says compensation expert Allen Odden, is identify the qualities they want teachers to have. Those who show they have those qualities--by passing a test or demonstrating certain skills--would be paid more.

Schoolwide academic progress should be factored in as well, says Odden, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Award a bonus--in the range of $2,000 or more per teacher--to the entire staff of schools that reach an agreed-upon target.

The extra money focuses teachers’ attention on the main goal of schools--academic achievement. And distributing it to the whole staff boosts interest in working on schoolwide goals.

At the same time, raising the salaries of individual teachers who, for example, pass a tough math test or become an expert in how to teach reading, shows that the district values what it takes to raise academic achievement.

Such pay plans are controversial, of course. Many teachers think of them as a way to avoid paying decent salaries across the board. And they seem similar to merit pay, which forces teachers to compete against one another for a limited pool of money.

Nonetheless, so-called “knowledge and skills” plans are catching on nationwide as school districts respond to demands that a far greater percentage of students master more challenging academic standards. Trouble is, many teachers are not prepared to teach at that higher level. And traditional salary schedules, which tie pay to experience and courses studied, haven’t contributed much to improving student learning.

Now, L.A. Unified is seeking Odden’s advice. He gave the district a teacher compensation plan linked to student achievement last summer and, last week, discussed it with the district’s ad hoc “accountability” committee. In an interview, he said this is “the perfect time to put this on the table” because the district has almost $500 million in new money from the state.

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The bonuses for schools might cost $70 million, or about 1% of the district’s $6.6-billion budget. But to make such a program work, the district also would have to invest heavily in training teachers to make them eligible for the higher rates of pay.

Some district officials are enthusiastic about Odden’s ideas. Indeed, the district already endorsed something along those lines a year ago when it gave raises of as much as 15% to teachers who earned “certification” by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards.

In negotiations so far this year, however, L.A. Unified has offered only a vague plan under which all teachers would receive an extra 1% in pay if districtwide improvement were to occur in four of seven indicators, such as dropout rates.

That idea is just “public relations window-dressing,” says Day Higuchi, president of the teachers union. How, he asks, could the effort or skill of a single teacher affect whether the 700,000-student district’s dropout rate goes up or down?

Higuchi acknowledged that he needs to deliver to his members a pay increase with no strings attached. The union has asked for a 4% boost on top of the 2% teachers received in July. But he’s willing to talk about ways to better align some part of teacher pay with the instructional priorities of the district.

He’s wary of paying bonuses to schools based on student performance, however. “I have yet to see a system that is really fair, and unless it’s fair, teachers won’t accept it,” he said.

One effort in performance-based pay is already under way at Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima, the district’s first charter school. A third of Vaughn’s teachers have agreed to an “alternative” pay schedule based on Odden’s work that pays bonuses--for example, $1,300 to those who demonstrate skill at teaching reading or helping students learn to speak English. In addition, teachers will be paid an extra $1,500 if the school meets its goals for raising test scores.

Yvonne Chan, Vaughn’s principal, said the plan, which at the top end will pay teachers as much as $64,000, makes sense. “You’re going to pay them anyway,” she says. “Why not pay them to be better teachers and pay the ones who are already good what they are worth?”