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District seeks feedback on teacher pay

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Comments (21)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

(Updated Wednesday, November 11 - 5:34 am)

By J. Brian Ewing
Staff Writer

GREENSBORO — Guilford County Schools employees and taxpayers will have a chance to tell school officials what they think about paying teachers based on students’ performance.

The district will hold four public forums this month at Smith and Southwest high schools to seek feedback on the idea of paying all employees based on their performance.

Currently, most teachers in the district and state are paid based on their years of service and degrees and certifications earned. There is a push locally and nationally to pay teachers based on student performance and the degree of difficulty assigned to that position.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools announced last week it will move to a performance-based pay scale.

The performance-based pay idea has gained momentum here under Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green, who left the Charlotte system for Guilford County last year.

Guilford County Schools already has performance-based pay incentives for some positions at certain schools. The district put in place Mission Possible in 2006. That program pays teachers additional money for teaching certain subjects at low-performing schools. Teachers at the 30 schools can earn more than $2,500 a year in addition to their regular salaries. Principals can earn up to $15,000 more.

Most Mission Possible schools have seen test scores improve while a few have experienced decreases or only slight gains.

Goals for Mission Possible include recruiting highly qualified teachers. The district drew criticism when it filled some positions with recent college graduates and professionals who have not yet received their teaching certification.

The program has improved teacher retention.

During the 2008-09 school year, Mission Possible schools averaged an 11.7 percent turnover rate, better than the district’s rate of 12.8 percent.

“The benefit for the student is the longer that teacher and faculty have been working together, the smoother that student’s ride is going to be,” said Amy Holcombe, the district’s executive director of Talent Development.

Holcombe noted that some teaching positions were vacant for years before Mission Possible.

Holcombe, who is leading the district’s incentive pay awareness efforts, said the district is looking at many pay scale models, not just expanding the Mission Possible model.

“This is not a process we’re moving on quickly. This is a meticulous process that’s moving slowly on purpose,” she said.

The performance pay debate has gained momentum under Green. In September, district officials discussed the idea during the board of education’s fall planning retreat and hosted a forum on incentive pay.

Support for incentive pay among school board members isn’t firm, though most support the idea in some form. Chairman Alan Duncan said the board will continue to look at the issue as a means of improving student performance but must also consider what is equitable for employees.

“We want to look actively at what fair approaches there are for teacher compensation, and we also want to work at providing the best possible educators for our students,” Duncan said.

The N.C. Association of Educators and its local chapter, the Guilford County Association of Educators, which are similar to a teachers’ union, have spoken out against doing away with the seniority pay plan.

They have supported incentive pay at hard-to-staff schools but believe the incentives should be awarded on more than simply student test scores.

Tijuana Hayes is president of GCAE and is on the Guilford County team exploring the incentive pay issue. She said it is clear the school district is interested in performance-based pay.

“I feel like for us to spend this much time, effort and resources on it there’s a possibility that this is where we’re headed,” she said.

Contact J. Brian Ewing at 373-7351 or brian.ewing@news-record.com

Accompanying Photos

Margaret Baxter (News & Record)

Public forums planned

Discuss performance-based pay for Guilford County Schools employees at:

General public
* 11:30 a.m. Nov. 23 at Southwest High School
* 5 p.m. Nov. 23 at Smith High School

GCS Employees (public welcomed)
* 5 p.m. Nov. 16 at Smith High School
* 5 p.m. Nov. 18 at Southwest High School

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Panacea

November 10, 2009 - 9:13 am EST

I don't oppose the idea of pay for performance, but it should not be tied to the standarized test. We've got enough teachers who just teach to the test as it is. There should be other criteria that includes actual observation of work in the classroom.

turkey

November 10, 2009 - 9:30 am EST

I am a teacher and am fine with teacher pay based on performance. However it is not fair to base a teachers pay on performance when many of the students they get refuse to work and are not dealt with properly by school administrators or the higher ups in the school district. The only way this will work is to get the kids that refuse to learn out.

Garth

November 10, 2009 - 11:33 am EST

Well said, too often a teacher sends students to administration to be dealt with and then find them back in the classroom with threat of poor review if the teacher cannot manage classroom better. Then you get kid standing on desk pulling pants down and “mooning” teacher advising teacher they cannot do anything about it, or other kids bullying kids in classroom and teacher tells kid being picked on “deal with it” as they know they cannot.

As for teaching to the almighty test…few things I “detest” more, but with Raleigh forcing it there is little to be done. Get rid of state School Board and Governor’s mandates for “dumb” ideas and replace with a more progressive and innovative system. Yes, we need a national standards test to set a minimum, but alas when government sets minimum standards we adopt them as the maximum goal to achieve.

JackK

November 10, 2009 - 2:35 pm EST

Garth,

Even worse than adopting minimal standards as maximum goals is celebrating coming anywhere close to achieving them. To think that a school hovering around a 50% passing rate could be adjudged one of the most improved or better high schools in the county is patently silly.

johnking

November 10, 2009 - 9:43 am EST

If I am correct, I believe state law specifies that school systems are allowed to move to this new pay system, but a majority of teachers have to vote on the measure. I could be wrong though.

formerupper

November 10, 2009 - 10:14 am EST

I agree with this idea, since this in every other job you are paid based on performance. Of course there should be accomodations based on what level and what courses (espically high school) that the teacher teach. Also it should not be based just on EOG or EOC test scores since many teacher tend to teach to the test. It should take into account all test scores. I think this would certainly weed out some of the teacher who under perform or who are just bad teachers.

ngparent

November 10, 2009 - 11:04 am EST

Teachers are underpaid period. To think that the pay for performance is going to lead to a much better education system, you are sadly mistaken. The root of the problems isn't the teachers, it is the apathy amongst a lot of the parents. Education has to be stressed at home. Children should show up at kindergarten with a fundamental knowledge of the alphabet and limited reading ability. The ones that are taught this at home do well in school. We should be there to help our children with their studies if it is necessary. Children who have parents who care about their education will succeed. Children who have parents that think they have no responsibilty in their child's education have a much better chance of failing. Teachers are not in this field for the money. They do it because they love it. I don't think they are the problem and to put this additional pressure on them is unwarranted.

DexterG

November 10, 2009 - 4:35 pm EST

Just to inform the conversation...

I think it is a widely spread belief that "teachers are underpaid".

Here are some sample pay rates for Guilford County for this school year.

Bachelor's Degree - 10 years experience - $42,840
Master's Degree - 10 years experience - $47,120
Bachelor's Degree - 10 years experience - National Boards Certification - $47,480
Master's Degree - 10 years experience - National Boards Certification - $52,230

Remember these are 10 month salaries. If you work a traditional 12 month salary job and want to compare what you make to teacher pay, multiply your salary times .833. (That's what you make for the same 10 months of work.) Add on top of this that teachers get two months off (unpaid, but, still, time to pursue other interests or to get a summer job to supplement income). Also many people in other professions pay over a hundred dollars a month for health insurance premiums. Teachers who are only covering themselves pay $0 for monthly health insurance premiums in North Carolina. All of this information is publicly available on the GCS website.

Still think teachers are "grossly underpaid"?

Note that these salaries apply to the best teacher you know and the worst. Is this fair to the students? Teach the students or don't teach them. You'll still get paid. Stay in it for another year and you'll get paid even more. Go back to school during the summers and get a degree and they'll pay you even more.

I believe that teachers should be held accountable for student performance, but it has to be fair. Anyone who works in the corporate world is familiar with the concept of a base salary with performance incentives. I think this system could work for teachers if a just and fair system for tracking student performance was devised. (Please not standardized tests.)

turkey

November 10, 2009 - 9:24 pm EST

Dexter you are right it is a ten month salary. It also has to cover the other two months that teachers aren't paid. Not to mention most teachers work more than a forty hour work. I know coaches that work more than a 60 hour week. With that being said check other occupations that have the same experience with the same degrees and then compare the salaries.

bbsmith2

November 11, 2009 - 1:24 am EST

Hey Dexter. You posted the Guilford County salary. If you head over to the NC DPI site http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/docs/fbs/finance/salary/schedules/2009-10sche... you will find the actual salary that the majority of the teachers make in NC. The amount for a 1st year teacher is $30,430 and for a 10 year teacher it is $38,190. You have to remember the 10th year of teaching is only year 9 on the pay scale. So your $42,840 is actually $42,300. Guilford pays a little better then most because they are a larger county. Most of the smaller counties have either no supplement or a really small one from a few hundred or a thousand per year extra.

I'm not sure about the insurance. I know a portion of my wife's check goes to insurance and dental. My wife this year started 8/18/09 and will work till 6/16/10. Over the summer she is required to attend classes and other things to keep her teaching license. Last summer it was about a week's worth of classes. She does not get paid for those. My wife also spends quite a few nights grading papers. She would like to grade them at school, but her planning period is used partially for hallway duties and other school first duties. After school she spends time tutoring kids so she doesn't have time after school to grade. Each day she'll come home with roughly 90 papers, tests, quizzes and now Senior Project's to work through. She's up till 10 grading each night after getting to school by 7:30 for bus duty. So she roughly puts in 13 to 14 hours a day. Each weekend she spends an afternoon planning for the next week. Creating tests, quizzes, lesson plans for the week.

I don't know of many jobs where you have to put in those kinds of hours for that amount of pay. I understand some jobs at the beginning might require that, but not all the way through to retirement. Those jobs are few and far between. So yes they only work a 10 month year, but they put in a heck of a lot of time and it does take its toll on them, their families and friends.

If a normal person works 50 hours a week for 52 weeks that comes up to 2600 hours. My wife put in 65 hours per week for 44 weeks that comes to 2860 hours. I don't think any of this will change your mind, but I wanted to give you a different perspective on teacher's salary other then the general 10 month is X when if you measure it at 12 month they really make Y.

commonsense45

November 10, 2009 - 5:58 pm EST

And so your point would be that someone with a college degree who works beyond 40 hours a week, who impacts our young people, who makes less than 45,000 is fairly paid? Many teachers do professional development or go to school over the summer. Yes, the summer is more months off than most people get,7-8 weeks compared to two or three, but you aren't getting paid, so yes, you would have to find other employment, or make your less than 45,0000 salary stretch for an entire year. People do choose to teach as a profession, so taking a smaller salary is a choice, but please, it is insulting when people minimize teachers work, by writing facts about average teacher salaries. Average means, just that, not all teachers are making that much money. Some are making barely 30,000 teaching tested subjects. They are held just as accountable as everyone else. I am a teacher and I am for performanced based pay as long as it is done fairly. Many of us, teach the tested subjects, and that does add extra planning time, extra paper work, extra pressure to perform, and our students test scores reflect whether a school is deemed successful or not.

DexterG

November 10, 2009 - 8:23 pm EST

So your point is that teachers should be paid just for showing up? Because that's the way it works.

There are many people out there with college degrees who get far less than $45,000 a year in salary for 12 months of work, and I can guarantee you that few people who are paid a "salary" work exactly 40 hours a week. (That's why companies pay salaries instead of hourly wages.)

I never minimized what teachers do. I simply pointed out that people always say "teachers are so underpaid", but they never really know how much they make.

You say there are some teachers "barely making $30,000". Well, they must still be working on their license because a licensed teacher with a bachelors degree and zero (yes, zero) years experience in Guilford County starts at $34,730. This is NOT an average. This is base salary. It's all online. Look it up. If they aren't making at least this, I recommend they call their lawyer.

Your argument just says that teachers "impact young people". You don't distinguish between whether it is positive or negative.

There are teacher assistants who impact young people. Some have college degrees and work just as much as teachers and make $18,540 a year. Are they fairly paid? Do they get more money because they have a college degree? No. Nobody says "teacher assistants are so underpaid".

Look again. These aren't average salaries. These are base salaries. Everyone who meets these criteria gets paid this at a minimum. They can get incentives above this base salary. They also have the ability to go back to school and instantly get a pay boost, without proving that it has any impact on how good of a teacher they are. I can't think of another job in the world that does this. Teachers who go to school in the summer do so because they know they are guaranteed to get more money if they can just get to that next degree or certification. I have seen it first hand time and time again.

Everyone likes to defend the poor teachers when someone directs criticism at the profession and, more importantly, the administration. What they fail to realize is that it is these very behaviors that keep bad teachers in the classrooms. They speak of teachers as this lofty, noble ideal, but all teachers aren't like this. If a fair system is put in place, the good teachers should be the first ones to say "yep, let's do this to get the slackers out". If teachers were truly held accountable, as you say, we would not have eighth graders who can't read.

I am no outsider. I am surrounded by teachers every day. I know what I am talking about. (Not all who work for the schools are teachers.)

turkey

November 10, 2009 - 9:31 pm EST

No Dexter you are wrong. Have you ever been punched in the face by a student. Spat on by a student. Cussed at by a student all for simply trying to help them learn. Lets see how well you THINK you can make a kid learn when there is no help from home and no way to discipline at school. You can lead a horse to water bt you can't make it drink. I would guess that you are one of those parents that you children never do anything wrong.

DexterG

November 10, 2009 - 10:03 pm EST

It is you who could not be more wrong about me as a parent. I can't stand people who defend bad behavior in either themselves or their children. I am sick and tired of people flipping me off when I call them for doing something wrong. My greatest complement at my last parent/teacher conference was when the teacher said my child was "respectful" to both her and the other students.

You are on a completely different issue.

I didn't want to go into that but I will. School administrators need to be held accountable too. Some principles are making six figure salaries and refusing to implement discipline because it makes their numbers look bad. I believe principals should be paid far less salary and have more of their pay made up of incentives for performance. It would force them to help their teachers teach. Some students need to be expelled and principles have to enforce this, but most refuse.

Hear me very clearly on this. I believe one hundred percent that schools should not be used to solve society's problems. As a society, we are putting too much of a burden on our schools to solve the inequities of the community.

I agree completely with the fact that a lack of discipline in schools is the prime factor in the decline of the entire US education system, but paying teachers more would have zero impact on this.

Would paying a teacher $100,000 a year make up for a student punching them in the face? No. Teacher pay has nothing to do with what you are referring to. You can keep throwing money at the schools, but it will never fix bad parenting. Never. Is the solution to pay children to go to school and get good grades? I don't think it should be, but some people say it works. (Again, a completely different issue.)

turkey

November 11, 2009 - 12:22 pm EST

Dexter I apologize, I get heated when talking about our schools. That is what I am talking about we need to get rid of or make a school for the kids that do not behave to teach them skilled trades such as brick laying, horticulture, electrician, auto mechanic etc. My sentiments exactly we are hurting the masses to try and save a few a few too many times.

ngparent

November 10, 2009 - 11:11 pm EST

There are plenty of bad teachers and they do need to go. The only other industry that I can think of that grossly underpays college grads is social work. What other industries pay less than teachers (college grads)? Why can't we get rid of the bad teachers without the pay for performance?

Eighth graders who can't read is a huge problem. Eighth graders who can't do their times tables is a huge problem.If my child was an eighth grader who couldn't do these basic skills, I would be embarrassed. I would not blame the teachers. I am sure that the teachers have taught the skills and assigned the appropriate homework. If the child has not done the work, he/she and his parents are to blame. How many truly bad teachers have you come across? My child is a senior and there have been only a few bad teachers. The majority have exceeded my expectations. I have tutored math and I have seen first hand what the teacher's assign and what the students are able to do. Teaching geometry to kids who don't know basic math is impossible. How would you grade a geometry teacher who has kids who can't add and subtract? Fix the basics problems first and don't waste time on perfomance pay scales. .

DexterG

November 11, 2009 - 12:12 am EST

What if pay for performance meant that good teachers have a chance to get paid more? There is a tendency to see only the negative side of this. Would it be worth pursuing if the budget to pay teachers basically remained flat but that money was distributed different ways?

Bad teachers get paid less and the money that used to be paid to them for just showing up and going through the motions goes to those teachers who have passion and innovate in the classroom to really help kids learn.

This would be a huge benefit. The big sticking point is finding a fair evaluation method and unfortunately bureaucracies aren't good at doing this.

A fair score would evaluate and weigh the student's performance on something like a standardized test along with some type of measurement of that student's attitude. This could somehow incorporate the student's behavior and study habit ratings along with their discipline record. I.E. a student with multiple in-school suspensions and a string of discipline problems should not be counted towards a teacher's effectiveness score at all, because that student has proven that he has little interest in learning. The schools already keep records of these kinds of things, why couldn't they be used to develop some kind of sliding scale or composite score?

commonsense45

November 11, 2009 - 11:10 am EST

I have to agree with you that there are slackers in teaching, but I personally work with teachers, who are working very hard for their students, so I have not experienced working with slacker teachers like you have. Now, with that said, when I mentioned the salaries, I was thinking in terms of take home pay, I am just saying that some very good teachers who don't have 10 years experience, are barely able to make it from paycheck to paycheck, My husband makes 3 times as much as I do, and he doesn't stay up until 11:00 pm grading math tests. He gets bonuses for performance. I did not receive my bonus for my good test scores last year, because of state cuts. I also lost 10 hours of pay and I was supposed to take a furlough day, which I did not, because again, I had too much work to do. If I wanted to take the furlough day, I would have had to do the work at home anyway. I agree with you that teacher assistants are underpaid too, but if they have a college degree (4 year), then why are they not a teacher? I have heard some say, they do not want the extra responsibility, which again goes back to my point that teachers who teach tested subjects spend more time on planning, on paper work, after school tutoring and are soley responsible for whether a school makes its AYP goals. I am sorry you work with teachers who are slackers, yes, I agree they need to go. You should change schools and work with people who are truly working for the students!!!! When you are in an environment where all teachers and administrators are working together for the good of the students it can make a huge difference in your attitude.

DaveW

November 10, 2009 - 9:21 pm EST

Even at the same salaries, higher quality people would enter the teaching profession if the working conditions were vastly improved.Few want to work like crazy making lesson plans and completing grades and other paperwork on their own time(weekends and after school hours)only to have students often dish out verbal and sometimes physical assalts towards them. I teach high school and have seen it. This can be a very thankless profession. Also dealing with some parents that have not raised their kids properly who blame the teachers for their own offspring's lack of success is no day at the beach either. For those that teach a tested subject, they are expected to make "chicken salad out of chicken droppings". The kid that is suspended often and only attends class about 2/3 of the days each semester(and disrupts class when there)is still tested. His/her teacher is still ACCOUNTABLE for that score. There are fewer and fewer teachers working until full retirement due to this ongoing and increasing situation in the public schools. When are the powers that be in our state going to realize that public school is for MOST STUDENTS BUT NOT ALL STUDENTS.They are so worried about statistics, demographics and number crunching that actual teaching has taken a backseat. This backseat is not in a four door sedan but in a school bus!

DexterG

November 10, 2009 - 10:11 pm EST

I agree. (See above.) Schools cannot be expected to fix society's problems. The needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few. A small number of students are affecting the larger student population. These students deserve more than one chance at success, but there comes a time where they should be removed from the "mainstream" and given situations to meet their needs (outside of a typical classroom).

The desire of the school system to treat all students the same has under-served all students, both those who have the will to excel and those who need more attention to their special circumstances.

bbsmith2

November 11, 2009 - 1:37 am EST

Mr. Ewing and Garth. My biggest concern about this is how subjective the criteria is for this. From my understanding Principals and other School Administration will be in charge of evaluating the teachers. Who will be in charge of evaluating them? What criteria will they be judged by?

From what my wife has told me the goals they have to meet are extremely subjective to the point of absurdity. Have they given you a copy of the goals to look over yet?

With that being said we both agree that something like this is overdue within the school system. So many times teacher will feel like they are putting forth all the effort with tutoring, chaperoning events, helping collect tickets for the sports teams and sponsoring clubs only to some teachers not putting forth the same effort. If this was a corporate enviroment those that put forth the most effort and gets the best results will be rewarded for that.

The fear is that the pay performance plan will be completely subjective and poorly implemented and do more harm then good.