Merit Pay and Bonuses for Teachers

I will admit, much of my thinking on this issue is based on the thoughts of Chris Whittle from his book Crash Course, but that does not make them any less valid.

If one assumes that teachers are vastly underpaid, which is an argument subject to interpretation, then something must be done to address the situation. I have long argued that teachers should be treated like other professions, like a learned profession, such as lawyers, doctors or engineers. In that light, the marketplace determines the pay structure of these professions and the services they render. Likewise, teachers should also be paid according to a market based system.

For that market based system to take effect and do what we expect it to do, teachers will have to be paid for services rendered to the community, not just time in service. Thus a radical restructuring of both pay scale and evaluation processes need to occur. But let us assume for a moment such actions take place.

How then do you address which teachers should receive merit pay and bonuses. First a few definitions. Merit pay is a permanent increase in pay, a pay raise, over an above any cost-of-living or common pay increase given to all teachers. Thus if the teacher contract calls for a 2.5% annual raise and a COLA, of 3.1% for a total of a 5.6% yearly increase, merit pay would include any increase above that. (I know, a 5.6% increase is phenomenal in some places, but it is just an example). A bonus is a one-time payment of some fixed dollar amount. Bonuses and merit pay may be paid to the same person, but need not be connected in any way, including how they are determined.

Merit pay is designed to reward exceptional teachers, those whose contributions to the educational community far exceed those of their peers. I would envision merit pay raises of 5-7% above norm going to between 5 and 10 percent of teachers in a given area at most. Those receiving merit pay would be at the very top of their game as instructors, as educators, and as mentors. These people, in short, would be your finalists for teacher of the year. Smaller merit pay increases of between 1 and 5 percent may go to the next 10 to 15 percent of teachers. But I beleive you should limit merit pay increases to no more than 25% of your teaching population. The idea is to provide incentives to all teachers to excell. Competition to be the best encourages the best behavior.

Bonuses on teh other hand need not be focused solely on those who get merit pay. Bonuses could be paid to teachers whose students post the most significant gains in testing, who provide other valuable services to the education community. But no matter what criteria are used, bonuses need to be real, generous and relatively rare.

In a typical year, I could envision may 2-3 percent of teachers getting a bonus. As I said, they should be for exceptional performance, even if that performance is one-time. Bonuses should also be signficant to be of value. A $1,000 bonus or a 1 percent or even 10 percent of pay bonus does not meet this criteria. A bonus should be 25 percent of base salary, or a fixed dollar amount in excess of 25 percent of the average salary. In short, bonuses need to be big and real.

The current pay schedule rewards endurance and longevity. It does not reward effort, innovation or success of students. It is in nearly every respect a very socialist pay scale, and we don't live in a socialist society. Merit Pay and bonuses attract bright, motivated people looking to make a mark, so let's do that.