The words “teachers are underpaid,” or “pay teachers more,” or something along those lines are commonly heard. With many people in and out of the education world bringing up this point, the question of whether there should be a new salary system for teachers within the district arises. An interesting change to consider is a pay system based on teacher performance.
The concept of teachers being paid based on their performance originated in Massachusetts in 1908, according to Ballotpedia. It grew in popularity in the early 2000s, being implemented in states such as New York, Colorado and Illinois. According to Ballotpedia, by 2008, eight states had put in place a system of pay that somewhat relied on teacher performance.
Although there are many questions as to how exactly teacher performance would be measured, the general idea is that teachers would have their salaries increased and decreased based on their students’ test scores and grades.
Some teachers don’t love the idea of a performance-based pay system. Teacher performance is shown through test scores and grades, not how well a teacher actually teaches, which raises doubts.
“There are also so many factors for student success that are completely outside of a teacher’s control that I think it would end up being completely inequitable,” AP Literature teacher and Spectator advisor Alexia Remy said.
AP Government and Sociology Teacher Elizabeth Muehl agrees with the idea but also has some doubts about its equity.
“It is a really hard question. On one hand, yes, if students are showing that they’re excelling from where they start. However, I don’t think I do agree with it simply because there are so many other living factors. I don’t know what’s happening in the house,” Muehl said.
MCPS notably does not allow final exams in their schools, raising the issue of how high school teachers who don’t teach any AP classes would have their performance measured.
English teacher Alexis Phares used to work in a school system in Orlando, Florida that used a performance-based system.
“If we raised [test scores by] a certain percentage, we would get more money in another aspect of our pay,” Phares said.
Although she liked the pay aspect, she believed that it led to a more toxic environment.
“It was a good incentive in regards of the money for teachers but I don’t think it fostered great relationships and I don’t think it helped the students or the teachers in the content for understanding. We’re teaching content to[wards] a test in order to get paid and so I don’t think it’s the best idea,” Phares said.
An alternative solution to not only help boost teacher pay but also give incentives to teacher performance would be additional stipends based on teacher performance and their students’ test scores rather than changing their full salary. There is something called the National Board Certification that teachers can do.
“It requires a lot of work, and you have to do a bunch of stuff to get in classes, but you actually do get a pretty significant stipend for having that certification which is essentially like you pass certain standards for teaching,” Remy said.
While performance-based pay isn’t popular among teachers, it has been made clear that something about the pay system in the county has got to change”
“There’s a lot in the education system that could change, but if we’re talking teacher salary, I don’t know how to change it. But I do think that there should be a change,” Phares said.
