There's Good Money in the Ed Reform Racket

The University of Washington's very own Marguerite Roza, an assistant professor at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, made quite a splash recently with a study arguing that states should no longer pay additional money to teachers when they earn Masters degrees. This isn't a new line of thought, but getting a full page write-up in Education Week and a mention in the Education Gadfly in short order isn't a bad month for an education researcher.

I've written about her before as well, here.

Her research is pretty counterintuitive, particularly to a happy union hack such as myself. Recent topics have included the idea that teachers could take a pay-cut to stave off layoffs, that insurance benefits are rather wasted, and now this new bon mot about degrees. It makes one wonder, how comfortable is this professor who has made the thrust of her research an examination on how to take salary and benefits away from teachers?

Turns out, courtesy of the state salary database at the News Tribune, that Dr. Roza is doing quite well indeed--a $10,400 monthly base salary, which works out to a cool $124,800 per year. Not too shabby!

I've ragged on Dan Goldhaber of the UW before, too--he's written about education, and is a very convincing public speaker, but the ideas that he presented during the Basic Ed Finance hearings were waaaaaaaaay out there. According to the Tribune Dr. Goldhaber makes $13,530 a month, or $162,360 a year. Those numbers are provided by the state.

Want to know why teachers are often so cynical about change agents? Because it's usually not the change agent who will be most affected by whatever grand idea is being proposed--it's the teachers.

(For the record, I made $46,341 last year with a Masters degree plus 8 years)

Read more here, if any.

Goldhaber Watch Continues!

Joanne Jacobs also picked up on the Goldhaber op-ed that I wrote about yesterday, but her post is better because she has a national perspective. It’s interesting to see what other states are finding the dollar amount needs to be to convince teachers to voluntarily transfer into high-poverty, high-need schools--it's pretty obvious that a couple thousand dollars isn't enough.

Read more here, if any.

Goldhaber Watch, Day 102

I’ve talked about the work of Dan Goldhaber out of the University of Washington before; smart guy who does a lot of good thinking about how to reform the system, even if I bitterly disagree with some of the things he’s tried in the past. In the December 19th Seattle Times he’s got a guest editorial spun out of the work that he’s doing with the School Finance Redesign Project wherein he talks about the perils of trying to implement differentiated pay for teachers based on subject, SES, board certification, etc. It’s worth reading, if only so you can be the weatherman who tries to tell which way the wind blows.

For what it’s worth (zero!), here’s some of my thinking on changing the pay structure:

Let’s Pay More for Math and Science Teachers! I’m not against this, if there’s proof that they’re getting results. If you’re going to give extra money to the same bad teacher doing the same lousy teaching that they’ve always done, that makes the whole system look foolish. If you’re giving extra money to a teacher who gets 40 kids a year to achieve at the highest level on the AP exam, now we’re talking.

(Sidebar: Those interested in the math/science teacher issue should check out the December 21st issue of the Chronicle Review for Linda Darling-Hammond’s article. It’s a great overview of the topic, and she’s a very readable author.)

Let’s Pay More for National Board Certified Teachers! Long time readers might think I’m against this. They’re right. I think that the National Boards are a waste of money, and I’m annoyed that they’ve been embraced by both my State Superintendent and my union.

Let’s Pay More for Teachers in High Poverty Schools! I’m all for it, because I’ve never heard a good reason not to.

We know that high teacher turnover is one of the factors that keeps low-SES, high poverty schools stuck in a never-ending cycle of rehiring and retraining. If making more money can convince teachers to stay there longer, that’s a good thing that will save us taxpayers money in the long run. If a bump in pay attracts successful teachers to those schools, that’s a good thing because those are the kids who need them most!

My only worry is that you might attract the wrong sort of teacher. Take Mr. Ennui, for example, who’s getting pressured by his principal to improve his practice but doesn’t really want to because hey, he’s been doing it forever and he’s only got three years until he can retire and it’s not him who’s the problem it’s the kids so why should he work hard—you might know him by reputation, even if you don’t know him personally. If he took a job in a school with a higher pay grade just for the sake of boosting his retirement, that’d be a damn shame for the kids.

Let’s Pay More for Teachers Who Live in Mercer Island! Um, no. My understanding is that at one time we had a differentiated salary schedule based on what part of the state you live in, and that just seems asinine to me. Sure it’s more expensive to live in Seattle, but there are advantages to the city that you won’t get living in Stehekin. It’s not always easy to attract teachers to some of our more distant towns, either—why would you go and teach special ed in Curlew if you could make more doing it in Spokane? The single salary schedule might have it’s weaknesses, but let’s not forget the strengths.

Also, I should be paid more. Just because.

If you could change one thing in our state salary structure, what would it be?

Read more here, if any.

Will Write Mission Statement for Food

The Tacoma Public Schools are going to be slashing administrators, reports the Tacoma News-Tribune:

The voters have spoken and Tacoma schools are heeding the advice: Cut central administration.

The district passed its operating levy on the second try in April, but along the way, school leaders heard plenty of complaints that the district spends too much on administration.

Now, as officials search for more than $11.2 million in reductions to balance the 2006-07 budget, they plan to slice central administration costs by $3.58 million.

That works out to 18 percent of all central administration costs, the deepest cut in at least a decade, said Ron Hack, the district’s chief financial officer. And that’s on top of several consecutive years of administrative cutbacks.

The district will shed a dozen management posts, including two assistant superintendents, an executive director of curriculum and instruction, six directors and several more coordinators and managers.

But central administration costs include more than just high-ranking administrators. At least 15 secretaries and numerous analysts, payroll, human resource and other support positions will disappear. Less money will be available for office supplies, discretionary spending and computer repair.

As a Good Union Member I should be saying, "Yeah! Stick it to the man!" The trick is, and the article goes on to make the point, there's quite a bit of administrating that needs to be done anymore. The data collection requirements of NCLB are a full-time job. Managing food services, managing transportation, managing special ed, managing Title funds, and managing the business of the district are all important things that need to be monitored and are awfully hard to combine. I won't argue that there aren't districts that are over-administrated, nor that there isn't money wasted as middle-managers do their middling management, but I also think that the administrators are an awfully soft target that people hit on anytime they're dissatisfied with the schools and the spending.

It will be interesting to look back at Tacoma in 3 years and see what the real effect of the cuts was. This sounds like a job for Dan Goldhaber!

Read more here, if any.