How should teachers be paid?

[melodrama]

What? You misunderstand my point. I opt for decentralisation and removal of bureaucracies like the DoE, not the introduction of multiple bureaucracies to enforce various methods. I say, put the responsibility back to the schools, so that they will actually get to optimise staff management (and it would be in their incentives to).

This would happen by the free market, not by bureaucracy. You seem to be saying that many bureaucracies are worse than one, I agree. I am saying that no bureaucracies are better than one

sure, but decentralisation and hence reduced regulation makes teachers more liable to suffer from favouritism and nepotism, whether it be due to staffroom politics, poor evaluation methods or even students that can't make the distinction between a "quality" teacher and a "cool" teacher. should schools really waste time trying to establish a "fair" code to determine individual pay? regulation is necessary to ensure that fairness is maintained in schools, and if that means that there has to be a blanket system, then so be it. outstanding teachers can be given positions of responsibility such as "head of department" that attracts higher pay.

[Collin Li]

Favouritism and nepotism are facets of a regulated industry where competition is not promoted (as is the case now). In a competitive industry of education, teachers that are unfairly treated will be offered a higher (closer to their proper market wage) wage to work at another school, and they would accept it.

The fair system is a free system. If poor evaluations arise from student surveys, then staff management will realise that they are not supposed to use this as feedback. It is much better to have a flexible system with a few flaws and mistakes along the way, than to have a bungling bureaucracy that will take years to fix its failures. Schools will not make many mistakes, because it would cost them severely if they had such bad staff management, forcing them to shut down.

[brendan]

sure, but decentralisation and hence reduced regulation makes teachers more liable to suffer from favouritism and nepotism, whether it be due to staffroom politics, poor evaluation methods or even students that can't make the distinction between a "quality" teacher and a "cool" teacher.

That in fact is more likely to occur within centralized bureaucratic organizations. 

should schools really waste time trying to establish a "fair" code to determine individual pay?

I don't make any comment, other than to say that such decisions ought to be left up to the individual school, not me and you. If they want to adopt the salary schedule created by the State government, they can do that too if they wish, if they want to vary it, they can do that too.

regulation is necessary to ensure that fairness is maintained in schools,

First of all, there is the question of how do you define 'fairness'. Second of all, there is the question of whether the current state-monopoly and centralized bureaucracy actually fosters 'fairness'.

outstanding teachers can be given positions of responsibility such as "head of department" that attracts higher pay.

That in fact is such a problem created by uniform salary schedules imposed on schools, that the Rudd government is now trying to counter it. 

[Sheikh05]

I believe that teachers should be offered a flat rate with bonuses without any possible increase of the base salary outside of a promotion (for fairness sake). The bonus system would entice a sustained effort on the teachers behalf.

As Coblin suggested earlier an aptitude test should be administered however I think it would be more benificial to have them sparingly (pop quizes i guess) with surveys at the end asking how long students have studied the subject matter under examination over the last week. While it would be reasonable to assume different students would have different quality of external study, assuming that they studied for a similar amount of time preceding each test and an increase in academic performance, the teacher would be somewhat of a contributing factor.

[melodrama]

Favouritism and nepotism are facets of a regulated industry where competition is not promoted (as is the case now). In a competitive industry of education, teachers that are unfairly treated will be offered a higher (closer to their proper market wage) wage to work at another school, and they would accept it.

That in fact is more likely to occur within centralized bureaucratic organizations. 

i don't understand why favouritism and nepotism will be more rampant in a system left entirely in the hands of unregulated principals and students as opposed to a regulatory and neutral third-party? rather, the current flat rate with merit for experience and length of service ensures that favouritism and nepotism is not a factor in a teacher's salary. moreover, experience hints at quality, because poor teachers will obviously be replaced by better ones in a competitive industry of education, and will endure and/or progress to higher salary tiers. surely this is "fairer" and a better indicator of quality than a multitude of hit-and-miss policies?

besides, it is difficult to even evaluate the "quality" of teachers in the first place, whether it is left up to schools or a centralised bureacracy. as i said, students may not be able to make clear distinctions between a teacher that they like "because they're cool" and a teacher that is strict but is more capable of producing better results. staffroom politics could damage evaluations, and the problem of defining "good education" and "good teaching" needs to be fleshed out. the ultimate goal of education is multifaceted. there is argument as to whether quality is indicated by the improvement of students, the final marks attained, the preparation for the workforce, emotional/mental nourishment, development of personality and so forth. the entire idea of performance is plagued with such problems; it is merely a good idea in theory but becomes immensely complex in enforcement.

[Collin Li]

Favouritism and nepotism have no room in a competitive environment. If a teacher is undervalued, another competitor school will realise they can still benefit while paying the teacher a higher wage than he or she is already on, and therefore the teacher will get the wage they deserve (by supply and demand). Principals who cannot discipline themselves enough to make unbiased decisions (i.e.: enwiabe of FSN) will incur the costs of distorting the true value (whether it be by overvaluation or undervaluation) of the teacher.

I don't believe in any kind of enforcement from a government agency. You are making that case for me. It does become immensely complex in enforcement. We should leave it to the ones who have a stake in the profits: it will be in their incentives to provide a service that others will want: this means finding the best policy for maintaining the quality of teaching staff. Competition can be promoted by removing zones, and this will make sure that schools can only survive if they provide high quality and appropriately priced education.

[costargh]

Schools surviving? I'd hate to see a situation where schools were being closed in droves because their standards were not the highest. Considering that the aim of public education is to give everyone an opportunity to have a "free" education I think the focus should be on increasing the quality of teaching across the board and not simply making  a handful of schools filled with elite teachers and the rest of the children in Australia having to resort to Private education because of the lack of schools available to them. My idealistic yet unrealistic aim would be to have a high standard of teaching across the nation where schools teacher quality should be a non-issue.

[Collin Li]

I never said that schools that didn't provide the highest quality education would close down, and that would not be the case! There would be a gradient of school quality going downwards until consumer demand no longer exists for it.

[costargh]

Competition can be promoted by removing zones, and this will make sure that schools can only survive if they provide high quality and appropriately priced education.

Maybe its just the use of words that struck me. I think even at the lowest standard of education there will always be a demand for it. Mainly due to the fact that the lowest standards of education would be in the isolated sections of Australia where there is 2nd choice if you are dissatisfied with the level of education that you are receiving. And considering kids must be at school to 15 (or somewhere around that) that demand will always exist. So improving the quality of teaching should be the aim for all schools

[Collin Li]

Let's say there are 100 kids in Victoria, and 300 spaces for kids in schools. Competition helps the consumer because the best 100 spaces for kids will be taken, and the bottom 200 spaces will have to compete to survive, otherwise they would be better off spending their resources on something that they are better at (i.e.: not education).

With regulations like zoning, choice is hampered, and this simple model no longer applies.

[costargh]

Yeh thats what I mean. The regulations don't allow your model to work. There are some serious problems facing our education system

[melodrama]

i'm still in favour of the experience system, as it does follow on from your "competitive industry of education" argument and is a workable form of performance pay. but come to think of it, it's rather similar to your proposal as the whole "better teachers will endure" idea underpins it. i spose a big difference is that for the experience system and government enforced 'tiers', it lowers the risk of "quality" teachers getting poached by richer schools, and makes it an equal playing field for everybody.

[brendan]

i'm still in favour of the experience system

That's my point, individual government schools ought to be free to choose that arrangement too. Such decisions ought to be at the school level (like at every other private school) not by some bureaucrat in a distant office.

i spose a big difference is that for the experience system and government enforced 'tiers', it lowers the risk of "quality" teachers getting poached by richer schools, and makes it an equal playing field for everybody.

why?

[brendan]

moreover, experience hints at quality, because poor teachers will obviously be replaced by better ones in a competitive industry of education, and will endure and/or progress to higher salary tiers. surely this is "fairer" and a better indicator of quality than a multitude of hit-and-miss policies?

First of all Victoria only fired 3 of its 39,434 government school teachers in 2006: http://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/the-need-to-sort-good-apples-from-bad/2007/02/24/1171734032307.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Secondly, the primary and secondary education market, is anything but competitive.

http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/%7Ealeigh/pdf/TQPanel.pdf
"The results from this paper also shed light on the extent to which uniform pay schedules, which reward teachers based solely upon qualifications and experience, capture productivity differences between teachers. It is certainly true that some of the variation between teachers can be explained by demographic factors. In both literacy and numeracy, more experienced teachers have higher test score gains. The experience effect is large in the early years of a teacher’s career, and thereafter appears to be larger for numeracy than literacy (though it is possible that this also reflects a decline in the aptitude of new teachers over time). I find suggestive evidence that students with female teachers do better in literacy, but no evidence that students do better if their teachers have higher formal qualifications. And the DETA rating does seem to capture some differences between teachers, even holding constant other characteristics.

Yet while there are some systematic patterns, 99 percent of the variation in teacher performance remains unexplained by differences in teacher demographics. This suggests that uniform pay schedules are indeed only picking up a small portion of the differences in test score gains across teachers. Assuming test score gains are an important measure of educational output, these results suggest that it may be worth considering alternative salary structures, as a means of attracting and retaining the best teachers."

Bottom line is that variation in experience only accounts for 1% of the variation in teacher performance.

But in any case, individual government schools ought to be free to choose that the compensation arrangement. Such decisions ought to be at the school level (like at every other private school) not by some bureaucrat in a distant office.

[costargh]

Only 3 teachers may have been "fired" but a lot of others are either not offered an extension on their contract or are made a deal so that the schools don't have to "fire" them but rather they leave on their own accord.