Teachers Split Over Performance Pay

Many younger teachers in Washington, D.C. are interested in a proposal to receive a higher salary in exchange for linking job security to their classroom performance. “Older teachers are more skeptical, and leery of placing their fate in the hands of a principal who may have a personal score to settle,” according to the Washington Post.

Under the proposal a teacher with five years’ experience who opts into the “green tier” could earn as much as $101,000 in salary and bonuses by 2010. A teacher with ten years’ experience could earn as much as $122,500. (The middle fifty percent of high school teachers in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area in 2007 earned between $45,880 and $65,840 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). “Green tier” teachers would relinquish tenure protections and go on probation for one year. The criteria for judging performance is still being negotiated by the district and the teachers association.

Teachers who don’t opt into the program would stay in the current salary program and retain tenure. Teachers new to the district, however, would be required to join the higher-salary performance pay program.

The proposal is an attempt to “attract and retain high-quality instructors who would be held accountable for growth in student achievement.

A 13-year teacher offers a conflicted view, applauding the objectives (“all of us know there needs to be a certain amount of weeding out”), but expressing concern that the proposal gives too much control to administrators.

It appears the teacher’s association may hold a vote on the proposal (once negotiations on the details conclude), sometime within the next week or so before school begins. Stay tuned, (other) Washington!