As part of a recent paper on moderation in politics, the authors conducted polling on a variety of issues. On the issue of teacher pay, respondents picked from the following options:
#1: It should be difficult to fire teachers, and their pay should primarily depend on how long they have worked.
#2: It should be difficult to fire teachers, but better teachers should get paid more than worse teachers.
#3: Being a teacher should be like any other job, where better teachers get paid more and worse teachers can be easily fired or get paid less.
Sixty percent of participants agreed with position three—teachers should be paid like any other job. This is surprising because of the outcry usually associated with weakening teacher labor protections and awarding teachers merit pay.
However, paying teachers like other professionals is reasonable, and this type of pay structure could be beneficial to students, teachers, and principals alike.
How could Missouri move toward a pay structure that most voters prefer? An initial challenge is measuring teacher quality—if better teachers are to be paid more, we must be able to identify them. There have been plenty of teacher evaluation systems where the evaluations are unhelpful; nearly all teachers are rated as exceeding expectations, and there is not meaningful differentiation. But there are also exceptions. A notable example is right next door in Tennessee: The Tennessee Educator Accelerator Model (TEAM).
TEAM calculates a rating for each teacher on a 1–5 scale based on announced and unannounced in-class observations, academic growth data, and student performance data. A holistic system like TEAM would be a fair way to rate teachers, and principals could use the ratings to inform teacher pay in their schools.
Twelve years ago, a ballot initiative in Missouri on this topic was soundly defeated (the initiative did have other controversial items attached to it). But two years ago, the Missouri Legislature passed Senate Bill 727, which allows for pay differentiation for teachers in hard-to-staff subject areas, like special education or physics, and those teaching in hard-to-staff schools.
This was a big step in the right direction, as noted by the blue ribbon commission assembled to tackle Missouri’s perceived teacher shortage. One member of the commission stated:
The biggest surprise to us businesspeople serving on the Blue Ribbon Commission is the lack of flexibility you all [the board] have for meeting high-need positions, it’s unbelievably inappropriate in today’s highly competitive market.
Paying all teachers the same, regardless of subject or school, was a longstanding policy that Missouri policymakers were right to reconsider and change. We need to continue that momentum and consider merit pay next.
