On teacher's pay and the $125k a year proposal...

Of one of the oldest, ongoing discussions of all time, we've debated to death of what to do with our education system; and, how to improve it, or rather, how to halt the long term downward slide of American younger generation's education level (math and science, in particular), compared to their Asian and East European counterparts.

George W Bush thinks he has the one-minute solution, namely, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Given a White House with Karl Rove, it's constantly in campaign mode. All complex, real-world issues are reduced to two-minute soundbites that promise quick fixes. While most everyone agrees that standardized tests (a central theme of NCLB), the Act is riddled with holes like swiss cheese, and poor executed to the max.

So here it is, another discussion, another attempt on improving our education system, resulting in heated online debates. This one suggests that we should give $125,000 a year to teachers, since they are poorly paid compared to engineers.

A bit of disclosure is in order. I totally agree that teachers in this country are poorly paid. (I can tell you though, that this is the same in other parts of the world.) I agree too, that in order to have first-class education system, you cannot be expecting teachers to scrap by with crumbs. And we should not be expecting the young, well-educated, and idealistic grads to do "sacrifice" for the next generation, by doing "social service/welfare" for being teachers to our children.

Ok, so we agree that low teacher's pay is one of the problems that riddles our education system, at least we can talk.

When I look at problems, I always relay back to my own experience (as a student, as a parent, and as someone who works in the commercial world). Say, I go straight to my boss' office, and tell me with a serious face, that I reckon my job is very important to the company, and that I deserve x amount in salary. What do you think my boss will say to me? What would YOU say to me if you were my boss?

What I can tell you is what I would say to this employee, if I were the boss. I need a few qualifiers though:

(a) You say your job is important? How important?

Ok, we have agreed that we put our kids' education in the teacher's hands, so it must be one helluva important job.

(b) You say you want $125,000 a year in salary? Why $125,000?

So you say since engineers earn $125,000 a year, me as a teacher should be earning as much.

Now, this gets tricky. How do you compare apples to oranges? Why aren't teachers compared to, say, social workers who arguably have a more stressful workload and no 2-month vacation a year, but get paid less? Why aren't teachers compared to CEO or CFO who earn exponentially more? Shouldn't teachers be paid like CEO/CFO?

You would see, that singling engineers' pay scale out as comparison to teacher's is as arguable as the subject matter itself. I don't see how anyone could pick a random out simply because they want someone else's paycheck.

(c) Say, there are 30 teachers in the school. If you're paid $125,000 a year, should the other 29 teachers get the same? If yes, is it fair? If no, how much should they be paid, and why someone should be earning $100,000 and you should get $25,000 more? In other words, how do you judge pay scale and performance.

One of the things I don't like about is the union. Sure, unions serve some purpose in ensuring workers benefits. But when it comes to performance evaluation, collective bargaining is one big, terrible idea.

In a way, unions take away all the incentives of the star teachers to excel, by ensuring that everyone - the mediocres, in particular - earns the same.

One tough question remains unanswered is, how to judge a teacher's performance. NCLB is correct in introducing the idea of accountability - so that the performance is decoupled by rigid work rules and hierarchy of unions. But NCLB fails utterly in relying on standardized test scores alone to test teachers' performance.

Sure, I grew up in a system of standardized tests. I grew up in Asia, and believe me, it's all about tests and exams. Back then, when I was a kid and a student, I didn't realize it to be such a big issue, since if someone flunks an exam, s/he gets kick out of school. Period. It's up to him/her to find their way in the society, or fall on the wayside. S/he becomes a social issue, but not an issue for the school. Out of sight, out of mind, y'see.

As a parent now, I'm not sure if I want to shovel one issue over the fence, and let the next system deal with it. What if it's my kid who can't catch up? I certainly would not want a system to rely on the test/exam scores, and that alone. But that's what happens with NCLB. Worse still, Bush scores political points with getting NCLB passed, without providing sufficient fundings.

Back to the issue of what the performance critera for teacher, it's still up in the air. In the commercial world, you have the Jack Welsh's GE way (ie. constantly sifting and cutting off the bottom 10% while rewarding top performers). Now we know it breeds anxiety, animosity, and low rationale (saved the top 10% percentile), and the top guys leave anyways.

For the past few years, the "360" approach is the rage. Basically, instead of relying solely on your own manager's evaluation of your performance, you're being evaluated by everyone whom you've worked with. That provides one extra element - ie. team work - which is not likely to show up in the Jack Welsh perf review. In the school settings, could we have tried surveying the input from parents and students (if they're old enough to judge) as well? In a way, parents are one best gauge on how well their kids have learnt or improved.

Of course, in real world, life is more complicated than that. The above suggestion assumes active parent involvement which oftentimes is glaringly absent in poor schools. How do we overcome that?

(d) And we haven't even talked about the definitive budget constraint that a school has. Sure, the GOP know-it-all hawks are going to tell the schools to cut spending and bureaucracy. Realistically, I doubt how many school districts can up the teachers pay from $50k to $125k across the board. It's just not gonna happen, even in the commercial world.


Well...it leaves many questions open, without addressing even a small subset of it.