The theory: the salary structure is senior-based, in New York City you reach maximum salary after twenty-two years of service and similar salary schedules prevail in school districts across the nation. Data tells us that teachers improve, as measured by student achievement, for the first five to eight years, teacher value-added, increases in student achievement measured by teacher evens out while salary continues to increase. Move from a senior-based to a performance-based remuneration system.
The theory assumes senior teachers are less lightly to adopt to change and work in collaborative settings, although I don’t know of any evidence.
The policy: use pupil achievement data per teacher evened out by value-added metrics plus principal assessments to “score” teachers. Purge the system of “low score” teachers regardless of seniority.
The impact: High salary, low value teachers will be eliminated and replaced by lower salary teachers in a continuing cycle.
The fallacies: In spite of the worst unemployment since the Great Depression the 2010 data indicates that 38% of NYC teachers left within their first five years. We don’t know why they left, whether they resumed teaching elsewhere, came back to teaching or left permanently (See Albert Shanker Institute musings here)
The evidence that financial reforms will increase teacher retention is lacking, and, in fact the evidence from many sources does not support the claim.
Additionally teachers move from district to district. Higher value-added teachers move from lower achieving to higher achieving schools and the movement is the greatest away from the most difficult schools.
If we were to superimpose teachers by value-added by school over poverty by zip codes we would find far higher numbers of low value-added teachers in high poverty neighborhoods. We would also find much younger teachers in high poverty areas. Schools in Brownsville, among the highest poverty neighborhoods in the city received “C, “D” and “F” on their Progress Reports while schools in Bayside, among the highest family income area in the city received “A” and “B.” Are the senior, higher salaried teachers in Bayside better than the younger teachers in Brownsville? Or, just maybe, the incredible level of gang violence in Brownsville impacts teaching and learning?
A simple approach: About 2% o fNew York City teachers received an unsatisfactory rating in the 10-11 school year based solely on principal evaluation. During the Klein-Walcott years the numbers have about doubled. In the pre Klein-Walcott years the vast majority of unsatisfactory ratings were sustained, currently virtually all of the ratings are sustained. Under the new state evaluation system teachers will receive a “score” based on some combination of principal evaluation and pupil achievement data.
I propose that teachers within two standard deviations of the mean are “satisfactory,”(95%) those beyond two standard deviations “exemplary” and those below two standard deviations “unsatisfactory.”
This system would identify about the same percentage of unsatisfactory teachers.
What is important is moving beyond this senseless emphasis on purging teachers and understand that teacher quality depends upon increasing the pool of highly qualified potential teachers, supporting them in their years of growth and creating environments in which they can both learn their craft and participate in a collaborative environment.
When the needs of the children become more important than the almighty dollar, then we will see real change. There is way too much money to be made constantly revamping the system.