compensation

Overpaid? Hardly

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The National Education Policy Center debunks that ridiculous AEI report on teachers being overpaid by 52%, and finds evidence to the contrary

This report compares the pay, pension costs and retiree health benefits of teachers with those of similarly qualified private-sector workers. The study concludes that teachers receive total compensation 52% greater than fair market levels, which translates into a $120 billion annual “overcharge” to taxpayers. Built on a series of faulty analyses, this study misrepresents total teacher compensation in fundamental ways. First, teachers’ 12% lower pay is dismissed as being appropriate for their lesser intelligence, although there is no foundation for such a claim. Total benefits are calculated as having a monetary value of 100.8% of pay, while the Department of Labor disagrees, giving a figure of 32.8%—a figure almost identical to that of people employed in the private sector. Pension costs are valued at 32%, but the real number is closer to 8.4%. The shorter work year is said to represent 28.8% additional compensation but the real work year is only 12% shorter. Teachers’ job stability is said to be worth 8.6%, although the case for such a claim is not sustained. In sum, this report is based on an aggregation of such spurious claims. The actual salary and benefits for teachers show they are in fact undercompensated by 19%

TTR TchrCompens Heritage 0

Teacher Retention: Estimating and Understanding the Effects of Financial Incentives

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There is currently much interest in improving access to high-quality teachers (Clotfelter, Ladd, & Vigdor, 2010; Hanushek, 2007) through improved recruitment and retention. Prior research has shown that it is difficult to retain teachers, particularly in high-poverty schools (Boyd et al., 2011; Ingersoll, 2004). Although there is no one reason for this difficulty, there is some evidence to suggest teachers may leave certain schools or the profession in part because of dissatisfaction with low salaries (Ingersoll, 2001).

Thus, it is possible that by offering teachers financial incentives, whether in the form of alternative compensation systems or standalone bonuses, they would become more satisfied with their jobs and retention would increase. As of yet, however, support for this approach has not been grounded in empirical research.

Denver’s Professional Compensation System for Teachers (“ProComp”) is one of the most prominent alternative teacher compensation reforms in the nation.* Via a combination of ten financial incentives, ProComp seeks to increase student achievement by motivating teachers to improve their instructional practices and by attracting and retaining high-quality teachers to work in the district.

My research examines ProComp in terms of: 1) whether it has increased retention rates; 2) the relationship between retention and school quality (defined in terms of student test score growth); and 3) the reasons underlying these effects. I pay special attention to the effects of ProComp on schools that serve high concentrations of poor students – “Hard to Serve” (HTS) schools where teachers are eligible to receive a financial incentive to stay. The quantitative findings are discussed briefly below (I will discuss my other results in a future post).

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The full paper can is below:

TEACHER RETENTION: ESTIMATING AND UNDERSTANDING THE EFFECTS OF FINANCIAL INCENTIVES IN DENVER

For Many Teachers, Reform Means Higher Risk, Lower Rewards

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One of the central policy ideas of market-based education reform is to increase both the risk and rewards of the teaching profession. The basic idea is to offer teachers additional compensation (increased rewards), but, in exchange, make employment and pay more contingent upon performance by implementing merit pay and weakening job protections such as tenure (increased risk). This trade-off, according to advocates, will not only force out low performers by paying them less and making them easier to fire, but it will also attract a “different type” of candidate to teaching – high-achievers who thrive in a high-stakes, high-reward system.

As I’ve said before, I’m skeptical as to whether less risk-averse individuals necessarily make better teachers, as I haven’t seen any evidence that this is the case. I’m also not convinced that personnel policies are necessarily the most effective lever when it comes to “attracting talent,” and I’m concerned that the sheer size of the teaching profession makes doing so a unique challenge. That said, I’m certainly receptive to trying new compensation/employment structures, and the “higher risk, higher reward” idea, though unproven in education, is not without its potential if done correctly. After all, teacher pay continues to lose ground to that offered by other professions, and the penalty teachers pay increases the longer they remain in the profession. At the same time, there is certainly a case for attracting more and better candidates through higher pay, and nobody would disagree that accountability mechanisms such as evaluations and tenure procedures could use improvement in many places, even if we disagree sharply on the details of what should be done.

There’s only one problem: States and districts all over the nation are increasing risk, but not rewards. In fact, in some places, risk is going up while compensation is being cut, sometimes due to the same legislation.

For example, Ohio’s controversial legislation (Senate Bill 5) eliminates tenure for new hires and guts collective bargaining rights, while simultaneously rolling back pay increases and increasing health care contributions (effectively a pay cut) for teachers and other public employees. Ohio Governor John Kasich actually promoted the bill as a cost-cutting measure, with the savings coming from public employee compensation, including that of teachers. In other words, more uncertainty in exchange for nothing or even less, all in the same bill.

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Teacher Attitudes about Compensation Reform

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We want to bring to your attention 3 study papers from The National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER). Some of it is pretty dense reading and probably isn't for everyone on a sunny summer's day. However we are heading into a period where lots of these issues are now front and center in how it impacts the teaching profession. It's worth a few minutes to simply read the conclusions if the entire paper is a little too much.

As Ohio moves towards high stakes teacher evaluations using student test scores, and of course, merit pay based on these high stakes evaluations it will become increasingly important for educators to understand these issues. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses and the state of current understanding will be crucial, for it is certain that there are lots of corporate education reformers who care less about whether new approaches actually work, and care more about profit seeking or their ideologically driven agendas.

The first paper looks at Value-Added Models and the Measurement of Teacher Productivity, and unsurprisingly finds that while VAM has some interesting uses, the data and measurement techniques are not mature enough to be reliable for high stakes decision making.

Value-Added Models and the Measurement of Teacher Productivity

The second paper looks at Teacher Attitudes About Compensation Reform, and finds that

We conclude with a reminder that our analysis says nothing of the politics of adoption. Whether a district is able to successfully adopt compensation reform clearly depends on its relationship with its teachers union, not just the attitudes of individual teachers. And while the WSTCS presents these various incentive plans as if they are separate from each other, if compensation reform is to have the types of effects that advocates and reformers hope for, various combinations of incentives may need to be considered: not just merit pay alone but merit‐pay combined with subject‐area pay and/or combat pay and/or NBPTS incentives. Teacher opinions about such combinations are an important topic for future research.

The final paper we want to bring to your attention covers Stepping Stones Principal Career Paths and School Outcomes, simply to highlight that school and student performance is affected by many complex variables, including school leadership itself.

We hope you continue to find the research we bring to your attention useful and informative and if you are aware of any research we haven't uncovered please let us know.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

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There is so much rich depth and thought provoking information in this NCEE paper, it would be hard to digest it in a single sitting. EdWeek:

The NCEE report is the latest salvo in a flurry of national interest in what can be gleaned from education systems in top-performing or rapidly improving countries. It pushes further than other recent reports on the topic by laying out an ambitious agenda for the United States it says reflects the education practices in countries that are among the highest-performing on international assessments.

Among other measures, the report outlines a less-frequent system of standardized student testing; a statewide funding-equity model that prioritizes the neediest students, rather than local distribution of resources; and greater emphasis on the professionalization of teaching that would overhaul most elements of the current model of training, professional development, and compensation.

To whet your appetite, and encourage you to read it, here's some snippets. Nothing in the current reforms even hints that this is the direction we are going in. Indeed, it would be easy to argue we are going in the opposite direction with ill-thought out corporate reforms

Three things directly affect the quality of the pool from which a nation recruits its teachers: 1) the status of teaching in the eyes of the potential recruit, relative to the status of other occupations to which he or she aspires, 2) the compensation offered, relative to other possible choices, and 3) the conditions of work, meaning the degree to which the way the work is organized makes it look more like professional work than blue-collar work.

The results of these corporate reforms are becoming increasingly evident, as large numbers of prospective teachers instead choose alternative career paths

Furthermore, analysts are now noticing a large falloff in applications for admission to teachers colleges all over the country, a result of the financial crisis. Potential candidates, who used to view teaching as almost immune from the business cycle and therefore one of the most secure of all occupations, are noticing that teachers are being laid off in very large numbers and now see teaching as a very risky bet.

NCEE - Standing on the Shoulders of Giants