Paying Teachers Sooner May Spark School Reform

January 23, 2008

 

The same argument comes up time and again.  To really change education, we need to attract and retain better teachers.  To do that, we need to come up with creative incentives to alter the nature of teacher pay.  Pay more for performance, pay more for knowledge and skills, pay more for teachers in high-priority subject areas, pay more for teachers in high-risk schools.  All are compelling and, given that research clearly shows that money matters in attracting high quality teachers, all should be tried and tested in a nation that cries out for answers to schools in crisis.

 

But one fact of teacher pay often gets overlooked.  When analyzed over the course of a 30 year career and a 20+ year retirement period, teacher pay borders on the competitive.  Teachers with three decades or more of service often retire with $1 million+ in pension benefits (85% of which is contributed by taxpayer dollars) and lifelong, comprehensive health coverage.  And in some municipalities, we are beginning to see more retired teachers on the pension roll than active teachers on the pay roll.

 

Please do not mistake this for a teacher-bashing argument that rails against generous pensions.  If we had our druthers, we would so radically alter the educator compensation formula in this country that the phrase “why don’t you become a teacher?” would roll off a nagging mom’s lips as easily as “have you thought about becoming a doctor or lawyer?”

 

Given, though, that the complete teacher compensation package – when viewed over the course of a 50-year period – looks more than respectable, imagine what would happen if we decided to front-load teacher pay.  Rather than a defined benefit retirement plan, let’s enroll teachers in a generous 401k plan from the start of their careers with, say, a dollar-for-dollar contribution match from taxpayers up to 6% of annual salary.  Teachers would lose the pension windfall at the back end of their careers, but they would have the same opportunity for compounded growth in 401k accounts that most American white collar employees have, if they’re lucky.

 

But look at what teachers – and the push for education reform – could gain.  Say we took the promised benefits at retirement and front-loaded them so that educators could reap the benefits of higher salaries throughout their careers.  Now we’re talking salaries that are ten, fifteen, or even twenty thousand dollars a year higher than current levels, all without changing the overall compensation package and cost to taxpayers.  Do you think this might attract better candidates into the system?   Won’t young, top-of-their class graduates thinking about buying a house and starting a family be more inclined to choose and stick with teaching if they don’t have to wait 30 years for a financial reward? 

 

It’s a system that’s more rational and predictable for everyone, with the costs of compensation not shifted to future generations of taxpayers.  Unions, you say, will prevent such a thing from ever happening.  Well, we wouldn’t impose this on teachers who’ve already been promised full pension benefits and, in fact, we might even suggest giving new teachers and those with fewer than five years of seniority the choice of whether they want the front-loaded pay system or the back-loaded one.

 

We think most will choose to be rewarded while they’re still teaching, and the quality of our educational system will be better for it.

 

 

Please take a look at other recent Change Fan Blog posts:

 

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