Growls

An editorial in this morning’s Newport News Daily Press concludes:

“Big across-the-board raises don't sort good teachers from bad.”

Noting that public schools in many communities take the largest chunk of local budgets while personnel costs are “the biggest chunk of of school budgets, the newspaper says “the plain truth” is:

“Good teachers are underpaid. Bad teachers are overpaid.”

The editorial seems well-balanced with a lot of useful information. In concluding that merit pay for teachers is better than a “one-size-fits-all” system, the paper makes the following point:

“Big pay increases don't in themselves improve teacher quality. In fact, they can backfire. The best and the brightest, who can compete in another field, aren't going to stay because a raise means they can look forward to $45,000 in 10 years, not $43,000. But marginal performers, less likely to find a job with similar pay, benefits, time off and guaranteed security, are tied tighter to the job by a generous raise. That's probably not the intended effect, and surely not the right one.

"Also, large across-the-board raises do nothing to fix one of the big things keeping (or chasing) capable, confident people out of teaching: the knowledge that no matter how hard they work, and how successful they are, they'll be paid the same as the abysmal colleague down the hall. That's the case today, with teacher pay determined only by years of service and degrees held (even if the degree is irrelevant to their assignment).”

Well-said, and well-written, Daily Press!