National workshop shines a light on teacher pay reform

Participants from 13 states including Texas attended the 2010 National Workshop on Strategic Compensation in Eagle County, CO, in October. The conference offered interested educators and policymakers an opportunity to hear the latest on strategic compensation initiatives in education. It included sessions presented by nationally recognized education researchers and speakers.

While presenters focused on different aspects of strategic compensation, the underlying message was clear: trying a quick fix (i.e., offering teachers additional pay for higher student test scores) is not an effective strategy because it does not address other aspects of the system that may not be working (i.e., evaluation and professional development).

Superintendent Sandra Smyser of Eagle County Schools gave the opening remarks. As an educator who has been in the trenches of compensation reform (her district switched to a strategic compensation plan 10 years ago) she offered two cautions and two pieces of advice for districts looking to systemically change the way they pay teachers.

She cautioned that strategic compensation is not a silver bullet for all problems in schools and that districts that want to reform their pay practices must stay focused on putting the best teachers in front of kids. They also shouldn’t allow the issues arising during the process to change the district’s focus.

Her advice was a reality check: moving to a strategic compensation plan is a complicated process that is never really done, but district leaders have to keep at it because they'll see better results each year. She encouraged districts to collaborate with all stakeholders throughout the process.

The keynote address was by James Guthrie, senior fellow at the George Bush Institute. Guthrie noted that as school districts face ever tighter budgets, they continue some ineffective pay practices: paying teachers more based on years of service and advanced degrees, neither of which affects teacher ability.

The challenge, he argued, is to improve educational productivity without more labor. Districts can do that by stopping such dysfunctional pay practices, expanding the use of technology, empowering principals, and providing incentives for efficiency.

Battelle for Kids: Design and technical lessons from Texas

The national nonprofit organization Battelle for Kids  did a presentation on its partnership with a number of Texas school districts to provide data analysis and support for their incentive programs. Houston, Fort Worth, Longview, Northside, and Lubbock ISDs are some of the districts that work with the nonprofit.

Of particular note was the success of the ASPIRE program in Houston ISD, which has been in place for three years. While recent studies have called value-added measures of teacher performance into question, few can argue about the results Houston ISD has seen. The district’s campus accountability ratings have significantly improved since the start of the program:

The system uses value-added measures of teacher performance to provide teacher incentives. Teachers also receive plenty of feedback, coaching, and targeted professional development to encourage success. Campuses are ranked against peer campuses to determine which receive awards.