Teachers versus the Public: What Americans Think about Schools and How to Fix Them

2. The Teacher-Public Divide

Teacher policy, parental choice, school accountability, taxes, and spending: all that and more have been tossed into the crucible that forges the politics of American education. The questions under debate are nearly endless: How much should be spent on education? How should teachers be paid? Should students and schools be held accountable? Should teachers have tenure to protect them from losing their jobs? Should families have government assistance that helps them pay the cost of attending private schools? Should more charter schools be allowed to open? Our surveys do not cover every conceivable topic, but they cut a broad swath. Although we could not inquire about every issue under public discussion , we do ask about twenty-three key topics that collectively shed light on the range and depth of the divide between teachers and the public. We begin this chapter with one of the most salient topics—the recruitment, retention, and compensation of the education workforce. Admittedly, any differences between teachers and the broader public are apt to be largest in this area, which has direct implications for teachers’ work lives. At the same time, intense public interest in measures to improve teacher effectiveness has placed these issues at the very top of the contemporary policy agenda. Teacher Recruitment, Tenure, and Compensation Policies Teachers vary widely in their effectiveness in raising student achievement. A student with a highly effective rather than an average teacher will have a better chance of going to college and will receive a higher salary when he or she enters the work force.1 Given the critical role that teachers play, their CHAP TER TWO The Teacher-Public Divide 15 16 The Teacher-Public Divide recruitment, retention, and compensation are crucial to students’ educational success. Accordingly, teacher employment policies have come under increasing scrutiny. To be hired, teachers are expected to have a state license, which is most commonly obtained by taking appropriate courses from a school of education. Salary differences are based almost exclusively on the number of years that a teacher has worked for the district and whether he or she has a master’s or other advanced degree. As a result, teachers in the same school district are compensated at the same level regardless of their effectiveness. Teacher pensions disproportionately reward those with a long tenure within the state or district retirement system at the expense of new and mobile teachers. Collective bargaining agreements provide extensive protections against dismissal for ineffective teaching. Only a tiny fraction— well under 1 percent—of the tenured teaching force is ever dismissed.2 School reform advocates are critical of every one of those policies. In 2009, as superintendent of schools in Washington, D.C., Michelle Rhee put in place a merit pay program and used her authority to remove teachers from classrooms where student performance was below par. Kate Walsh of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) says there is little evidence that state-licensed teachers are any better, on average, than those teaching without certification. Nor does she think that a master’s degree adds much, if anything, to teacher effectiveness. On the grounds that additional years of teaching beyond the first five are only weakly related to teacher effectiveness, reformers also cast doubt on the wisdom of compensation strategies that reward senior teachers with higher pay and valuable pension benefits. They argue that job protections for ineffective teachers place the interests of teachers ahead of those of students. Walsh would have Congress require every state to set a “minimum percentage ” of probationary teachers that school districts “must identify” as low-performing each year, making them eligible for dismissal if their performance does not improve.3 Jeb Bush, who founded the Foundation for Excellence in Education (Excel in Ed) after completing two terms as Florida governor, has called for an end to teacher tenure and the abandonment of traditional salary schedules in favor of pay-for-performance programs. By contrast, teacher unions oppose merit pay, tenure limitations, and looser teacher certification requirements. In Chicago, teachers struck in opposition to board proposals to introduce performance evaluations and eliminate the “last-hired, first-fired” rule, which gave preference to senior teachers regardless of their effectiveness. The strike was prolonged into a second school week when negotiators could not agree on “a teacherevaluation system and a demand that laid-off teachers be the first ones rehired.”4 Explaining her reasons for the strike, union leader Karen...