# Public School Teachers Can't Ever Get (Or Deserve) High Pay/Prestige w/ This Going On **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 29, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953 "2010-06-29T17:30:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![HookerChemical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@HookerChemical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HookerChemical)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/41 "2010-07-06T17:37:19Z")
The rubber rooms (and bad teachers in general) are a result of incompetent administration. There are some districts that negotiated lousy contracts that make it almost impossible to fire a teacher for anything short of a felony conviction, but those are the exception rather than the rule. All it takes is documentation by the administration that the teacher isn’t doing their job well and they can punish or fire the teacher after a brief process. The trouble is that administration doesn’t want to bother with the process. Documentation takes a moderate amount of extra effort, so it doesn’t get done. They’re interested in meeting the minimum goals of so many different regulations/grants/contracts and dealing with ever dwindling budgets that they don’t want to bother going through the effort to punish a teacher who other teachers don’t even want around. These are administrations that will have photographic evidence from a teacher of a student vandalizing school property and institute no punishment because it would require extra effort. Punishing a teacher is significantly more difficult (as it should be). Asking the administration to document and push for punishment of a teacher is way too much effort. Punishing teachers (or any other worker) without some kind of process is unreasonable. Most contracts do not have an arduous process, but it rarely gets pushed. It’s easier for administration to move a teacher to the rubber room or to continue to tolerate poor performance than to document that the teacher deserves to be punished. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/42 "2010-07-06T19:29:29Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Do you think they would trust any reformers, or is the current situation one they don’t want to jeopardize? Honestly, I’m not sure. However, I do think many of the current reformers have not done much to assure teachers that they have their best interests at heart. > [@Marley23](#): > > What about the auto workers? Do you think they were net losers because some of them lost jobs and they had to give up some of their benefits, or did they gain because the alternative was that their industry might have gone under, in which case they all would have lost their jobs and benefits? Of course they are net losers. Just because some were able to keep their jobs is really missing the point. You can often keep or increase the net number of jobs by lowering wages. The analogy only works in terms of illustrating how worker concessions rarely result in a net positive for workers themselves. UAE concessions may have resulted in cheaper cars, fewer jobs being lost, and a more solvent company, but they are not good for the worker’s as a whole. People always miss the point that auto workers did not assign themselves these benefits, they were negotiated. Why don’t people hold the administration or management as accountable as the workers? > [@Marley23](#): > > I’m not persuaded by this way of thinking, and it’s not just because I don’t think teachers are about to be replaced by robots. Teaching _is_ a job. It’s one with a responsibility that most of us consider important, but it’s a job. But I think a growing segment of the population doesn’t view it as important. Not only because of teacher actions, but also as part of a larger anti-intellectual, anti-education trend. If these trends continue, you may not see teachers replaced by robots, but you will see them replaced by untrained undergraduate and graduate students. The latter already teach many courses at some of the best universities in this country. I would not be surprised to see regular college kids, reading from a script, teaching 4th graders in the relatively near future. > [@Marley23](#): > > And if teachers don’t want teaching to be “just a job,” then they should be more willing to reform policies that protect bad teachers. Those policies reduce the quality of education and they’re not good for the kids who are being taught. If teachers believe their jobs are special because they educate children, they can’t do these kinds of things in support of bad teachers. Isn’t that attitude rather cynical? This is just disingenuous. It’s like saying lawyers shouldn’t defend guilty people. You don’t know who is guilty, or is a bad teacher until after the fact. Furthermore, almost every policy will end up protecting some bad people. The first amendment protects plenty of awful people, does that mean we should change it? Giving cops a right to arrest you will result in abuses, but, on balance, there is more positive than negative. Teachers protect bad teachers because they protect the profession of teaching. At the very least, you need to demonstrate there are vast numbers of bad teachers that make the policy a bad idea. Nobody even bothers to do that anymore. It’s just assumed because they had a bad teacher way back when, and because they feel our system should produce better results. Sorry, but that doesn’t cut it. You (perhaps rightly) state that sky high satisfactory ratings given to teachers by administrators are not evidence of their competence, yet you want to give those same administrators more control over the product? > [@Marley23](#): > > You’re not taking it to its logical extension, you’re taking it to absurdity. I haven’t said schools should be run like a business and all free-market principles should be applied to schools. ( **Heurta88** did, maybe.) There’s no profit motive in public education anyway. That’s not absurd at all. In fact, [it](http://neatoday.org/2010/04/19/chasing-experienced-teachers-from-the-classroom/) [already](http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/02/michigan-push-tens-thousands-teachers-retirement) [happens](http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/gov_chris_christie_backs_off_p.html) [today](http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2010/04/gis-ladner-pushes-for-firing-experienced-teachers-as-a-cost-saving-measure.html) in one form or another. The current principal at my old high school has been trying to push out senior teachers since he arrived. How do you plan to counteract the financial disincentive to hire experienced teachers? By allowing anyone to be fired without cause, means individuals will naturally let go of teachers who cost more. That’s basic logic. The effect of this thinking can be seen today in NYC among other places. > [@](#): > > Many lower-performing priority schools are cash-strapped and prefer to fill their teaching vacancies with newer teachers, who can be paid less and are eager to land their first jobs. A New York Times story just weeks before the start of the school year discussed how **principals’ preference for hiring less costly new teachers was interfering with job placements and transfers throughout the New York City school system, resulting in 1,800 teaching vacancies**. In fact, many priority schools throughout the country hire a greater percentage of new teachers than veteran teachers, primarily because of cost considerations. You don’t think making it easier to fire teachers would magnify the problem? > [@Marley23](#): > > I do think it’s getting to be time for these kinds of changes. And I think policies like this are a significant problem on their own. You may think that is the case, but the evidence doesn’t seem to bare that out. If you think it’s a PR issue, that’s fine, but making it easier to fire teachers doesn’t seem to result in better schools, or, ironically, more [firings](http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2010/mar/07/report-florida-collier-fire-more-new-teachers-nati/). > [@](#): > > Florida has a system of contracts, in place since the mid 1980s, used rather than a tenure system. In the state, a school district can fire a teacher for any reason in the first 97 days of employment and teachers can be granted continuing contracts after three years of employment. That contract is renewed annually, as long as a teacher continues to have positive yearly evaluations. > > **“When many people hear the word ‘tenure,’ they assume this status means a teacher has a job for life. This is simply not true,” said Cal Boggess, president of the Collier County Education Association, which represents the district’s teachers. “It means that teachers have due process protection from arbitrary dismissal. As with most laws, the ‘tenure’ law was passed in response to abuse on the part of administrators.”** > > But the report, titled “Ringing the Bell for K-12 Teacher Tenure Reform,” singles out Florida as one state in which attempted tenure reform has failed. Efforts by state legislators to tighten the state’s system of teacher contracts, and the use of performance measures to determine pay, have been almost an annual staple of the Florida legislative session in recent years. > > **“At first glance, the premise of renewable contracts seems to imply lack of permanent employment,” the report reads. “But if these contracts are virtually always renewed — as appears to be the case — then the policy change does not have a significant impact on the number of dismissals or the quality of the teaching force.”** > > During the 2008-09 school year, the Collier County School District had 3,374 teachers. Of those, 96 teachers in their first three years did not have their contracts renewed or 2.84 percent of the district’s workforce. Four teachers who had professional service contracts, or were “tenured teachers,” were let go, or 0.11 percent of the workforce. So the problem is not with the unions, but with administrators not having the time, resources, and/or inclination to actually evaluate the teachers. Florida’s system is far closer to a system I would imagine you’d advocate, and they still don’t use that power because they can’t be bothered to do the work. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/43 "2010-07-07T03:57:46Z")
I think that we all know that we had, and our children have had, great, good, ok, bad, and terrible teachers. We all still remember their names. Why can’t we devise a plan to reward and pay more to the good and great while firing the bad and terrible? Most objections come from the “How do you evaluate them?” camp. If we could at least agree that we need to come up with some sort of evaluation plan instead of paying everyone the same like a McDonald’s line worker, then we could start the process of keeping our great and good teachers with better pay, while sending the worthless ones packing. The problem is that most teachers unions fight the idea of merit pay tooth and nail. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/44 "2010-07-08T07:11:07Z")
> [@](#): > > **erez** : The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code. Exactly. It was chartered by the federal _government_. It is not a union. The quote from the general counsel about how we are a “union” encourages members to think in a united way and for a while NEA along with the state and local affiliates referred to the overall structure as “The United Teaching Profession.” And I hardily supported that idea. Don’t misunderstand. I am very pro-union. **But calling the NEA a union does not make it a union.**. And of course it is called a union in the media all the time. Like you, they don’t understand the difference. Unlike members of the media and the counsel that you quoted, I was a dues paying member of the National Education Association for twenty years and for part of that time I was my school’s representative to the Metropolitan-Nashville Education Association which is the local branch. (Everyone joined on the local, state and national level if you chose to join at all.) If you look at the National Education Association’s webaite, you will see that they make no claim to being a union. Since when has a union been hesitant to show union power? Look at the goals of the NEA. Do they look like typical union goals? Good teachers don’t want poor teachers around either. They are a drag on everyone. I have seen a teacher _so bad_ that she wouldn’t let the seven or eight students that they gave her to tutor each period into ther classroom at times. (The principal broke down the door.) She was so confused that she could not tell the difference in her white Cadillac and the principal’s red Volvo. At another small high school we lost two teachers in one day concerning child molestation. One of them ended up teaching in another state. The other one was never prosecuted and resigned on the understanding that no charges would be brought against him. I have seen a student teacher in history who thought that we fought against the Russians in WWII. Her supervising teacher gave her a generous “D” as a grade. Her supervising college professor changed it to a “B.” Stop blaming the NEA for bad teachers. That is the last thing we want. ---
**Author:** ![erez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@erez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erez)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/45 "2010-07-08T08:43:16Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > Exactly. It was chartered by the federal _government_. It is not a union. > > The quote from the general counsel about how we are a “union” encourages members to think in a united way and for a while NEA along with the state and local affiliates referred to the overall structure as “The United Teaching Profession.” And I hardily supported that idea. Don’t misunderstand. I am very pro-union. **But calling the NEA a union does not make it a union.**. > > And of course it is called a union in the media all the time. Like you, they don’t understand the difference. > > Unlike members of the media and the counsel that you quoted, I was a dues paying member of the National Education Association for twenty years and for part of that time I was my school’s representative to the Metropolitan-Nashville Education Association which is the local branch. (Everyone joined on the local, state and national level if you chose to join at all.) You are just as wrong about this as you are about the NEA not being a huge part of the problem. The NEA stopped pretending it is not a union at the 2009 assembly described in the Education Week blog I quoted (“Essentially, much of this year’s assembly turned on the delegates grappling with the meaning of belonging to a union”). Is your experience from before 2009? > [@Zoe](#): > > If you look at the National Education Association’s webaite, you will see that they make no claim to being a union. Here are the articles from their site you asked about: “You’re in the largest professional union in the United States. Knowing what that means can make your job and your paycheck better” ([http://www.nea.org/home/18469.htm](http://www.nea.org/home/18469.htm)), "NEA transformed itself into one of the largest and most powerful unions in the country, " “NEA has been the nation’s largest union for more than 25 years and currently has 3.2 million members” ([http://www.nea.org/assets/img/PubThoughtAndAction/TAA\_07\_08.pdf](http://www.nea.org/assets/img/PubThoughtAndAction/TAA_07_08.pdf)), “Union launches “Turn Around Initiative” to improve schools” ([http://www.nea.org/home/35822.htm](http://www.nea.org/home/35822.htm)). You also ignored the quote from Wikipedia about how it is incorporated as a labor union in most states. Is it incorrect? I’m sorry to say but you’ll have huge difficulties convincing anybody that the NEA is not a union, if its own general counsel, website, legal structure, and all the media say otherwise. > [@Zoe](#): > > If you look at the National Education Association’s webaite, you will see that they make no claim to being a union. Since when has a union been hesitant to show union power? Look at the goals of the NEA. Do they look like typical union goals? They absolutely do look like typical union goals. What makes you think otherwise? ---
**Author:** ![Manwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Manwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manwich)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/46 "2010-07-08T09:31:08Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > The problem is that most teachers unions fight the idea of merit pay tooth and nail. Most teachers hate the idea of merit pay too, even the teachers who would probably end up benefiting financially. It would be a disaster for the staff environment. Teaching is a collegial profession. We are constantly helping each other, discussing teaching strategies, discussing students and chipping in where it is needed. Teacher’s Unions oppose merit pay because teachers oppose it. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/47 "2010-07-08T10:55:24Z")
> [@Manwich](#): > > Most teachers hate the idea of merit pay too, even the teachers who would probably end up benefiting financially. It would be a disaster for the staff environment. Teaching is a collegial profession. We are constantly helping each other, discussing teaching strategies, discussing students and chipping in where it is needed. > > Teacher’s Unions oppose merit pay because teachers oppose it. So, if you show up for work ready to teach and bust your ass to do a good job; basically go the extra mile for your students, you should be paid the same as the slacker who shows up for class and has the kids read aloud from the textbook for 50 minutes? Private sector employees work as a team as well. But we have varying levels of pay based on what we individually negotiated. Opposition to merit pay only encourages mediocrity at best. ---
**Author:** ![Manwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Manwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manwich)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/48 "2010-07-08T12:09:16Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > So, if you show up for work ready to teach and bust your ass to do a good job; basically go the extra mile for your students, you should be paid the same as the slacker who shows up for class and has the kids read aloud from the textbook for 50 minutes? > > Private sector employees work as a team as well. But we have varying levels of pay based on what we individually negotiated. Opposition to merit pay only encourages mediocrity at best. I was responding to your claim that unions are the problem. In this case, the union is acting according to the views of its members - teachers. Hard working teachers hate lazy teachers and want them to work harder. But I don’t think it helps to see this problem in terms of money for a couple of reasons. First, fair pay is important to teachers but for most it is not the primary motivation. Secondly, improving teaching standards and improving educational outcomes is complex and reducing everything to “make lazy teachers work harder” distracts people from sensible debate. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/49 "2010-07-08T13:36:57Z")
First, **Zoe** , as a dues-paying member of NEA, I’m gonna tell you, that’s a bizarre claim based on a technicality that doesn’t really pertain here, and you’re simply wrong. NEA walks like, talks like, and quacks like a union. It’s a union. Except where it’s not. Like here in North Carolina. It’s **illegal** for teachers to engage in collective bargaining here, so the NEA is a big joke. I’m a member for two reasons: 1. The union can be helpful in dealing with administration (even though we can’t engage in collective bargaining, the superintendent is allowed to listen to teacher concerns as voiced through our NEA chapter, and we have a good chapter that follows through on concerns).; and 2. If the unthinkable happened and I faced a charge of misconduct, the chapter would pay for legal representation for me. It’s basically a form of liability insurance. Now, as to the thread, I think DanBlather had it right on: > [@DanBlather](#): > > God this whole debate makes my blood boil. I think teachers should be paid much more than they are, the requirements to be a teacher should be much higher than it is, and teachers should be evaluated for performance and possibly lose their job if they don’t do a good job. As a teacher, I find the idea of tenure to be mildly repugnant; if I weren’t on track to “benefit” from it, I’d probably find it more repugnant. (I put “benefit” in quotes because I have no intention of falling back on tenure). Tenure is unnecessary and provides me with no benefit. Job security is nice, absolutely. But I’d prefer to keep my job security through being awesome, through teaching the shit out of my subject, through constantly learning about new pedagogical techniques, through improving my teaching community by sharing my own skills with other teachers. I work my butt off at my job, and while I don’t work as hard now as I did during my first year, I intend to keep working hard until I retire. Yes, I could get a principal that hated me and that fired me for some dumb reason. That’s the risk in any profession. In fact, even before I get tenure, I have some protection. If it’s merely an issue of incompetence, the principal would need to put me on an “action plan,” saying specifically what’s wrong with my performance and documenting measures put in place to correct it, and then I’d have a few months to work on these areas. I think that’s fair, and that’s all the protection a teacher should need. As for charter vs. public schools, and why some charter schools perform better, lemme tell you a little story. In my short career so far, I’ve retained one student, and it was a wrenching decision. I hated doing it. He missed about 20% of school days, way over the allowed level; he was low in all subjects. His mother never gave me a working phone number. She showed up for one conference all year, despite repeated letters home, and that was because she was facing criminal truancy charges if she didn’t show up. Lemme ask: does that mom sound like the sort who’s going to go the extra mile to send her kid to a charter school? Or is she the sort who will do less than the bare minimum necessary to keep her ass out of jail? If public schools are the default, then they will always be the ones who get the kids with the least involved parents. Set aside money, location, busing, any other issue you might be imagining is a barrier to participation in a non-default school: a signature on a single page asking to send a kid to a non-default school is going to be a sufficient barrier to keep kids like the one I described out of the non-default school. It sucks, but there it is. So public schools will ALWAYS end up with the kids with the most academically-challenging home lives. You simply CANNOT do an apples-to-apples comparison unless you randomly assign kids to a public or charter school without requiring additional parental input. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/50 "2010-07-08T15:55:30Z")
**Left Hand of Dorkness** What a great post. Some day we’ll invest enough money into schools so that we can fill it with people like you, and pay you all what you deserve. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/51 "2010-07-08T16:21:38Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > So, if you show up for work ready to teach and bust your ass to do a good job; basically go the extra mile for your students, you should be paid the same as the slacker who shows up for class and has the kids read aloud from the textbook for 50 minutes? It sounds bad, but is the alternative really better. I think people worry that merit pay will introduce business norms to an environment where social norms predominate. Like the famous Israeli day care [example](http://www.spruancegroup.com/blog/?Tag=Social%20norms). > [@](#): > > The story about the day care centers is actually quite interesting. Originally, the daycare centers relied purely on social norms to ensure that kids would be picked up on time. If for some reason parents were late for pick-up, their guilt compelled them to be more prompt in picking up their kids in the future. Once the fine was imposed, the daycare center replaced social norms with market norms. Now that the parents were paying for their being late, they made market decisions on whether to be on-time or late. Again, at $3 per occasion, more and more parents weighed the benefits of convenience (and began to pick up their kids whenever it suited them) versus the required payment. One can see how this could turn out bad. > > The most surprising thing about the story is that when the daycare center removed the fine (and presumably went back to social norms), the behavior of the parents didn’t change for a long time (in fact, there was a slight increase in the number of tardy pickups). The moral here is when social norms collide with market norms, social norms are not easy to reestablish. Say you establish a perfect system of merit pay. You will create both incentives and disincentives for each individual teacher depending on their circumstances. For example, in a high stakes merit pay environment, why would anyone share lesson plans? Since many of these situations will basically be zero-sum, there is a disincentive to share information or assist other teachers. This will hinder development of new teachers who don’t have a wealth of tested lesson plans to draw from, and well-established administrative relationships to rely on. Or suppose the costs (time/energy/etc.) of gaining the bonus outweighed the actual bump in salary. You might have people now deciding that it is not worth the effort; creating even more disincentives. One example of this that I personally know about is with lawfirms. If someone doesn’t have burning desire to become a partner (for example), they will rarely try to maximize their hours since there are diminished returns for everything above the threshold for a bonus (and job security). Sometimes, this can be seen when projected hours in December exceed the actual number of hours worked since people may have hit their marks already. Now there is less distortion there because there are well defined paths for advancement, and a clear, objective rubric (billable hours); but, since none of that exists in education, I think the results could be far more deleterious. Now let’s go back to reality where we actually need to address the particulars of how merit pay is proposed. Any fair, effective means of merit pay will cost A LOT more in administrative costs. The main opposition arises when schools officials try to half-ass it. They want to use already available criteria such as test scores, or grades to evaluate teacher effectiveness. I think we can all appreciate the folly in only doing that. To fairly evaluate people would require all teachers being monitored multiple times each year, lesson plan evaluations, and student feedback. All of that would cost a lot. That doesn’t even include the subsequent extra pay you would have to give to the teachers themselves. More importantly, the areas where teaching standards need the most improvement do not have extra money to do all this. The question you need to ask in the areas like NYC, or Washington DC, or Detroit is why is there such a push for this? Yes, they want better teachers, but many also want to break the union, and eventually lower overall teacher compensation; eliminating pensions, tenure, etc. > [@jtgain](#): > > Private sector employees work as a team as well. But we have varying levels of pay based on what we individually negotiated. Opposition to merit pay only encourages mediocrity at best. The problem is that while this is great in theory, the devil is always in the details. Many teachers and union reps like the idea of merit pay, but dislike the proposed ways of doing it. Here is what [wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_pay#Political_opposition) says the official stances of the major players are: > [@](#): > > The National Education Association (NEA) adamantly opposes some forms of merit pay. In June 2003 NEA President Reg Weaver said: > > ``` > "Teachers understand that politically motivated panaceas such as merit pay and eliminating tenure do nothing to improve teacher quality. Our members are open to alternatives, but we will always oppose quick fixes designed to weaken the voice of teachers and effectiveness of education employees in all jobs."[7] > > ``` > > The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) also opposes merit pay in its current incarnation. In November 2007, President of AFT Local 1021 Joseph Pechthalt argued that: > > ``` > "Whether it is the informal discussion that takes place in the lunchroom or the more formal exchanges based on grade level, department, or small learning communities, these are only successful because as teachers we understand teaching is about working together to help our students, not competition for better pay".[8] > > ``` > > Many educators argue that merit pay weakens the bargaining power of teachers unions. In his article, Pechthalt writes: > > ``` > "If salaries were not simply based on years of experience and number of college credits earned or additional services provided, the teaching force at any workplace would be more stratified and much less willing to stand together during a conflict with school management or during a contract struggle".[9] > > ``` They seem to be, more or less, against the current incarnations of merit pay. More importantly, opposition to merit pay only encourages mediocrity if the proposed pay is sufficient to induce results that will eventually lead to better student outcomes. That is not at all clear. An Urban Institute study found the [following](http://www.psea.org/general.aspx?id=1996): > [@](#): > > While the authors report some positive short-lived effects of merit pay–reduced turnover and absenteeism, greater goal orientation, increased engagement in constructive and innovative activities–they conclude that most plans had “major problems.” They state: “By and large, the school districts we examined did not succeed at implementing lasting, effective, monetary or non-monetary incentive plans, ones that had a demonstrated ability to improve student learning (presumably the major rationale for providing added public funds in the case of monetary incentives).” The negative outcomes include (1) teacher morale problems from increased competition and divisiveness; (2) teachers being upset because they did not get the awards they deserved; (3) the use of quotas on the number of teachers who could receive awards; and (4) the plans were costly and time-consuming. The authors also reviewed other studies of merit pay and found “little evidence from other research, including the evaluation literature, that incentive programs (particularly pay-for-performance) had led to improved teacher performance and student achievements.” If you believe, as I do, that the politically feasible forms of merit pay that have been proposed thus far would ultimately be bad for teachers and the education system, I don’t think opposing them is encouraging mediocrity. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/52 "2010-07-08T17:00:53Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > The analogy only works in terms of illustrating how worker concessions rarely result in a net positive for workers themselves. UAE concessions may have resulted in cheaper cars, fewer jobs being lost, and a more solvent company, but they are not good for the worker’s as a whole. Even though more workers kept their jobs and benefits. I’m not saying this is a situation anyone wants to be in, but if your company and your industry go under, you have no job and no benefits. > [@](#): > > People always miss the point that auto workers did not assign themselves these benefits, they were negotiated. I haven’t missed that at all. I haven’t blamed anybody for taking a good deal. I’m saying the old deal may not be sustainable and it may not be the right one in terms of having the highest quality education system. > [@](#): > > This is just disingenuous. It’s like saying lawyers shouldn’t defend guilty people. It’s nothing of the sort. I’ve said already that everybody deserves representation when accused of doing something wrong. If there are complaints they should be heard and handled in a timely fashion. But there is a lot of daylight between ensuring fairness and making it difficult to fire teachers who are incompetent or abusive. Everybody deserves representation, but bad teachers don’t deserve a full-court press and a three-year appeals process with pay. And while that was specific to New York I think it’s a signal that there is a larger problem. > [@](#): > > Teachers protect bad teachers because they protect the profession of teaching. And they hurt the profession of teaching by doing it. Like I said, teachers and unions who protect bad teachers beyond the point of reason are showing more interest in their own job security than in their students, and we’ve been told again and again that teachers deserve our respect because they care so about their students. You make a fair point that we’ve left administrators out of this discussion so far, and that they share a lot of the the blame for the current situation. You’re right. If I have a mixed opinion of teachers and their union, I have a very low opinion of school administration. > [@](#): > > How do you plan to counteract the financial disincentive to hire experienced teachers? By allowing anyone to be fired without cause This appears to be another attack on a position I didn’t take. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/53 "2010-07-08T18:18:09Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Even though more workers kept their jobs and benefits. I’m not saying this is a situation anyone wants to be in, but if your company and your industry go under, you have no job and no benefits. But the education system is not about to go under because of teacher pay. Ford, et al. could not afford to pay their employees, we just choose to not fund education adequately. Plus, it’s moot point if even with concessions, your job gets outsourced. > [@Marley23](#): > > I haven’t missed that at all. I haven’t blamed anybody for taking a good deal. I’m saying the old deal may not be sustainable and it may not be the right one in terms of having the highest quality education system. Did I miss where your equally lengthy, and reasoned critique of administrators? > [@Marley23](#): > > It’s nothing of the sort. I’ve said already that everybody deserves representation when accused of doing something wrong. If there are complaints they should be heard and handled in a timely fashion. That is exactly the issue. You can only deem these teachers bad based on the process currently in place (or some similar process). Just as you are only guilty of a crime after a trial, you are considered a bad teacher in the eyes of the system only after the issue is properly adjudicated. You are arguing that the aims of the systems are bad, hence the need to get rid of tenure, rather than it being poorly implemented. More problematic is your insistence that the unions are at fault for the poor implementation rather than lack of administrative will and resources. By getting rid of tenure, and thereby weakening unions, you would ensure that many would not get adequate representation when they are accused of doing something wrong. > [@Marley23](#): > > And they hurt the profession of teaching by doing it. Like I said, teachers and unions who protect bad teachers beyond the point of reason are showing more interest in their own job security than in their students, and we’ve been told again and again that teachers deserve our respect because they care so about their students. Since when are the two mutually exclusive? First, unions generally don’t make a point of defending the actions of individual teachers, they ensure that the process by which complaints against teachers are investigated is fair and impartial, and that teachers are only fired with cause. Yes, bad teachers are afforded those same rights, just as criminals are given a fair trial. > [@Marley23](#): > > This appears to be another attack on a position I didn’t take. Really? Please let me know where I’ve made an error. Tenure basically means you can only be fired with just cause. You want to get rid of tenure, adopting the at will model seen in the private sector. This means teachers can be fired, “for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all”. Administrators, who already push out expensive, experienced teachers due to budget concerns would (under your ideal) be allow to fire teachers for any reason whatsoever. I think this will only increase the incentive to fire experienced teachers. Do you doubt this? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/54 "2010-07-08T19:44:25Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > But the education system is not about to go under because of teacher pay. I know. I didn’t suggest it was. I said I wondered if something like that would ever be necessary in education. You said workers always lose, and I argued that in this situation they didn’t lose - some of them did, but others kept jobs they would have lost if the industry had failed. That’s not a position anyone wants to be in but it’s minimizing the loss. > [@](#): > > Did I miss where your equally lengthy, and reasoned critique of administrators? Perhaps you could have read to the end of the post. > [@](#): > > That is exactly the issue. You can only deem these teachers bad based on the process currently in place (or some similar process). Just as you are only guilty of a crime after a trial, you are considered a bad teacher in the eyes of the system only after the issue is properly adjudicated. The process does not have to be as dragged out and onerous as it is. And I think you’re being legalistic here. I’ve conceded that teachers should have some protections. But a bad teacher is a bad teacher regardless of what “the process” says. The issue is that the process should reflect the reality, which is that 94percent of teachers aren’t deserving of tenure- or at least of what the tenure system has turned into, which includes enormous protections that remain excessive even if they are doing a bad job, and that 98 percent can’t be “satisfactory.” > [@](#): > > Since when are the two mutually exclusive? The two things don’t _have_ to be mutually exclusive. In the cases we’ve discussed in this thread \_ where a teacher who is incompetent or abusive gets to continue drawing pay and earning a bigger pension during an appeals process that, by design, moves at a snail’s pace and takes years \_ they are mutually exclusive. That kind of process doesn’t help students, taxpayers, or anyone else. It’s basically a handout to bad teachers. > [@](#): > > Yes, bad teachers are afforded those same rights, just as criminals are given a fair trial. A three-year appeals process is not a fair trial. Few criminal trials take that long, and the accused often stay in jail during that time. That’s a far cry from the kind of situation an accused teacher finds himself in. > [@](#): > > You want to get rid of tenure, adopting the at will model seen in the private sector. This means teachers can be fired, “for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all”. > [@Marley23](#): > > Teachers shouldn’t be fired for no reason I said that in my first post in this thread and I’ve repeated the same view since then. I’ve said the current tenure system, which makes bad teachers very hard to fire after only three years on the job, is a bad one. But I also said a purely private sector model goes too far because schools are not a for-profit enterprise. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/55 "2010-07-08T20:55:21Z")
Perhaps a bit late in the discussion, but _This American Life_ did a piece on the rubber room a couple of years ago and interviewed some of the teachers banished there. It said many teachers spent months, and in some cases years, in the rubber room while waiting for a resolution. The streamed version is available for free on [this page](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/350/Human-Resources). ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/56 "2010-07-08T21:36:27Z")
Thank you for the well-thought out reply, but I still fail to see your point. First, the Israeli day care situation. It is a business. It either provides its customers an option of a late pick up or not. If it provides such an option, then it needs to charge a price that can allow it to make a profit. If $3 is not sufficient, then charge a higher amount. If they don’t wish to allow a late pick up, then impose a fine which is sufficient to deter the behavior. But they are also in competition with other day cares, so in the end there will be a day care that offers late pick ups at a fair price to the consumers who need such a thing bad enough, Consumers win. No need to feel guilty because you had to work overtime, and were 10 minutes late picking up your kid. Your idea of teachers backstabbing each other to get merit pay is something that just doesn’t happen by reasonable people. The few who engaged in that behavior should be dismissed immediately. Why do students, in competition with each other, form study groups and help each other? A rising tide lifts all boats. That works in education as well. Most of the rest of your post generally parroted the teachers union line about how merit pay is bad because there is no good system. Let’s find that system, because when we do, you’ll have a hell of a lot more people willing to spend money on education when they know that it will go to GOOD teachers instead of flowing to mediocre pissed off bureaucrats and administrators. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/57 "2010-07-08T21:48:00Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You said workers always lose, and I argued that in this situation they didn’t lose - some of them did, but others kept jobs they would have lost if the industry had failed. That’s not a position anyone wants to be in but it’s minimizing the loss. I think the auto workers did lose, but I guess we can disagree on that point. > [@Marley23](#): > > The process does not have to be as dragged out and onerous as it is. It is dragged out largely because administrators do not want to utilize the resources it takes to have a speedy resolution. > [@Marley23](#): > > But a bad teacher is a bad teacher regardless of what “the process” says. As a person who commits a crime is “guilty” irrespective of what a jury says. However, we must have a formal process to verify our preconceived notions in order to protect those who are not. It’s easy to just hand wave away this by just saying we need to get rid of bad apples. Of course we do, but if it were so easily to identify them, and confirm their incompetence, they would have been fired during the first 3 years of their employment. You can undermine “the process” all you want, but if the choice is between that, and the lynch mob, I will stick with the process even if a few bad apples slip through. > [@Marley23](#): > > The issue is that the process should reflect the reality, which is that 94percent of teachers aren’t deserving of tenure- or at least of what the tenure system has turned into, which includes enormous protections that remain excessive even if they are doing a bad job, and that 98 percent can’t be “satisfactory.” Did you make a typo here? You think 94% of teacher are not deserving of tenure? If so, what are you basing that on? Here’s my problem with the assumptions you seem to be making. We have 90+ percent of teachers (who don’t quit) getting tenure after X number of years based on terms negotiated by the unions, and 90+ percent of teachers (tenured or otherwise) being rated satisfactory by administrators. That seems pretty logical if you accept the validity of the evaluations. If you think the satisfactory ratings are incorrect, what are you basing that on? More importantly, as I asked before, why do you think the situation will improve by giving the people, handing out baseless satisfactory ratings to teachers, more power? > [@Marley23](#): > > A three-year appeals process is not a fair trial. Few criminal trials take that long, and the accused often stay in jail during that time. That’s a far cry from the kind of situation an accused teacher finds himself in. Again, what proof do you have that the process takes that long due to the unions? > [@Marley23](#): > > I said that in my first post in this thread and I’ve repeated the same view since then. I’ve said the current tenure system, which makes bad teachers very hard to fire after only three years on the job, is a bad one. But I also said a purely private sector model goes too far because schools are not a for-profit enterprise. So what would you propose? You can’t get rid of tenure, then turn around and say you can only fire people under certain circumstances. If you do that, you basically have tenure, which states that you can only fire people for cause. If you go to an at will model, you will surely see people being fired for a multitude of crappy reasons even if they official reasons differ. You can’t have it both ways. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/58 "2010-07-08T22:10:19Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > It is dragged out largely because administrators do not want to utilize the resources it takes to have a speedy resolution. I don’t see how that’s the case when (at least in New York) the union contract mandates that a suspended teacher can only meet with an arbitrator a few days a month. > [@](#): > > However, we must have a formal process I’m not sure why you find it necessary to state it over and over. I said in my first post that there needs to be a process and I think I’ve said it in every post since then. > [@](#): > > Did you make a typo here? You think 94% of teacher are not deserving of tenure? 94 percent of New York City teachers get tenure after three years. I do not think they are all deserving. > [@](#): > > If you think the satisfactory ratings are incorrect, what are you basing that on? The bell curve if nothing else. It is essentially impossible that 98 percent of all the teachers in such a huge system are satisfactory, and don’t forget that a few years ago, the percentage who got unsatisfactory ratings was even lower. It indicates the evaluation process is meaningless. And you’re right, it also speaks to minimal effort from administrators. Perhaps they don’t want to have to go to the trouble of documenting bad work, or think it will reflect badly on the school. Or maybe they just don’t care; I certainly saw some of that in school. It’s unacceptable regardless. > [@](#): > > Again, what proof do you have that the process takes that long due to the unions? The union contract mandates that hearings can’t be held more than five days a month during the school year. _I cited this in post 24_. This means the city accepted that term, granted, but that also indicates they didn’t think they could do better. > [@](#): > > You can’t get rid of tenure, then turn around and say you can only fire people under certain circumstances. I never said tenure needs to be abolished entirely. I said a system in which teachers get tenure after only three years and are then often in place for another 30 - and yes, officially they can only be fired for cause, but in reality it often means they’re untouchable - is not a good one. I think that needs to be replaced with a system that includes some job security, but also meaningful evaluations and a process for getting rid of teachers who do poorly while rewarding the ones who do very well, and a _sensible_ due process. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/59 "2010-07-08T22:25:02Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I never said tenure needs to be abolished entirely. I said a system in which teachers get tenure after only three years and are then often in place for another 30 - and yes, officially they can only be fired for cause, but in reality it often means they’re untouchable - is not a good one. I think that needs to be replaced with a system that includes some job security, but also meaningful evaluations and a process for getting rid of teachers who do poorly while rewarding the ones who do very well, and a _sensible_ due process. Why? Work under an at-will employment doctrine. It works for all other professions. Then you can get rid of the teachers that everyone knows are bad, but just haven’t violated Rule 3, subsection q yet. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953/60 "2010-07-08T22:44:38Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > First, the Israeli day care situation. It is a business. It either provides its customers an option of a late pick up or not. If it provides such an option, then it needs to charge a price that can allow it to make a profit. If $3 is not sufficient, then charge a higher amount. If they don’t wish to allow a late pick up, then impose a fine which is sufficient to deter the behavior. This line of thinking only works if the incentive or disincentive is enough to cover the costs of providing it, or to induce the behavior you desire. The problem is that we likely cannot financially or politically sustain a merit pay bonus that is high enough to induce the behavior we desire. As we increase our standards, say X amount of extra hours worked, we would need to increase the pay bump. I see no evidence that there is that kind of flexibility in most budgets to do that. More to the point, once you link money to extra work or better results, you will ensure that people will rarely do those things for any other reason. > [@jtgain](#): > > But they are also in competition with other day cares, so in the end there will be a day care that offers late pick ups at a fair price to the consumers who need such a thing bad enough, Consumers win. No need to feel guilty because you had to work overtime, and were 10 minutes late picking up your kid. Consumers may win. That’s the problem. When business norms predominate, the consumer wins when things are cheaper, more efficient, etc. It doesn’t follow that it will be better. If the goal is to produce more capable and knowledgeable students, business concerns are secondary to good educational practices. Ikea makes cheap furniture, which is good for the consumer. However, most will concede it is not better. We can run schools in an business like manner, but don’t be surprised when you get all the bad things that come with it. > [@jtgain](#): > > Your idea of teachers backstabbing each other to get merit pay is something that just doesn’t happen by reasonable people. The few who engaged in that behavior should be dismissed immediately. Did you read the study I cited. They said the following: > [@](#): > > The negative outcomes include (1) **teacher morale problems from increased competition and divisiveness** ; (2) teachers being upset because they did not get the awards they deserved It’s the first negative consequence they cited. These are, presumably, reasonable people. Granted, I don’t think you will see much outright backstabbing, just an aversion to sharing materials, ideas, and lesson plans. Say, Teacher A has a killer lesson plan, but they are saving it for their upcoming review. Do you think they will share it with other teachers before that point? Business norms have already bled into the system. Right now you have teachers [selling](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/education/15plans.html) their lesson plans to other teachers. When there are economic incentives to make information and teaching practices proprietary, you will see fewer people giving it away for free. That hurts the profession as a whole. > [@jtgain](#): > > Why do students, in competition with each other, form study groups and help each other? A rising tide lifts all boats. That works in education as well. Because the situation is often not zero-sum as it might be in merit pay situations. Also, most competitive programs do not have many students sharing notes or studying together in substantive ways. Most students in those situations do a strict cost-benefit analysis. You might see people working together in minor ways, but you also see [active](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/students_competing_for_college_committing_facebook_sabotage.php) sabotage. A rising tide doesn’t raise all boats when there is a strict bell curve either. You might see some people working together, but you will rarely see type of cooperation you would hope to find in a group that shares collective goals. > [@jtgain](#): > > Most of the rest of your post generally parroted the teachers union line about how merit pay is bad because there is no good system. Let’s find that system, because when we do, you’ll have a hell of a lot more people willing to spend money on education when they know that it will go to GOOD teachers instead of flowing to mediocre pissed off bureaucrats and administrators. Fair enough. I am all ears. Honestly, do you not think there are plenty of people on both sides looking to do just that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-school-teachers-cant-ever-get-or-deserve-high-pay-prestige-w-this-going-on/544953.md?page=4)