[D]istricts are looking at paying competitive salaries to attract and retain teachers licensed in high-demand fields like technology....No discussion of gender in the article, but I'm wondering if this will work in favor of gender equity by attracting more men into K-12 teaching and then also whether it will result in what may be perceived as gender inequity as males will look like they're paid on average X% more than the females (because they specialized in technology and responded to those "ladders").
[Monona Grove School Board member] Peter Sobol said though the law was billed as providing budget relief for school districts and local government, it could end up being harder on budgets as districts develop compensation models that combine their desire to reward good teachers and the need to keep them....
Monona Grove is developing a career ladder to replace its current salary schedule. The new model is still being drafted by a committee of district administrators, school board members and teachers, but its aim will be to reward “increased responsibility, leadership, ‘stretch assignments’ and other contributions to the district and school missions,’ ” according to the district....
The Sun Prairie School District... allows the district’s hiring manager to make “market adjustments” in salaries for teachers in hard-to-find fields like technology or agriculture, and gives stipends for teachers who have additional degrees.
September 8, 2014
Scott Walker's Act 10 leads to a "teacher marketplace" in Wisconsin.
Molly Beck reports in the Wisconsin State Journal:
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28 comments:
"I'm wondering if this will work in favor of gender equity by attracting more men into K-12 teaching"
No.
"whether it will result in what may be perceived as gender inequity"
Yes.
Without pay inequality things get too expensive.
Money isn't why men don't teach.
False accusations of touching kids is why men don't teach. I had one friend who quit teaching outright when a co-worker caught some girls he gave a poor grade to plotting to claim he touched them inappropriately.
Figured no job was worth that.
English teachers will be irate.
OK, here is my plan to improve the pool of teachers. Do something about pensions. Right now teacher's pensions are so attractive that people continue teaching long after they have lost all enthusiasm for it to cash in on a lottery-winner type pension.
What? They're replacing the old system in which the top-paid teacher in the area was a 6th-grade phy-ed instructor? Outrageous!!!!
What, they're replacing a system with one that rewards those who teach high tech, in-demand subjects?
If women are paid less than they're worth nobody will hire men.
Women are worth less because they can't understand economics or math.
They think that if a woman is paid less then she feels bad.
Therefore men have to change things to fix it.
Women wind up in teaching because they're able to sustain an interest in what children are saying where men cannot.
A gender advantage.
It's a start, but until you place schools under the same constraints that normal businesses have, the normal improvements in quality and productivity will be muted. Unions will exert pressure to ensure equal-pay guidelines get enforced and this will only escalate all teacher salaries.
Within the Union's old step-and-lane system, teachers of comp. sci, AP physics, chemistry, etc., were paid the same as everyone else with the same experience.
The result was predictable: those who had good, marketable skills (ones that could earn more money outside the public education system than within it) were seldom found in public education classrooms, and those who taught these subjects in public schools were all too often ignorant (yet arrogant) fools, fools who were often mocked by the brighter students.
Act 10 can't ensure that more talent will flow into STEM classrooms, but by allowing school boards to adjust pay to demand it at least creates the possibility for some improvement.
Now if market-based salaries are combined with more emphasis on alternate teacher certification there'd be even more possibilities, as more than a few talented people are just not willing to put up with ed. school nonsense.
In any case, the ultimate answer to "gender equity" just might end up as hard Title-IX type proportionality quotas in science and engineering. I can't imagine any policy that would do as much to damage U.S. competitiveness in the world, but so what? In today's Brave New World, "gender equity" is trump.
“The great irony is that Act 10 has created a marketplace for good teachers”
Hmm - ironic? Because we all know that the point of Act 10 was to ruin education in Wisconsin, right?
Progressives can't imagine that conservatives think their ideas will work better.
The irony of ironies. That criminal Scott Walker's attack on Education only lead to a great new benefit for good teachers.
Unexpectedly a market force, that had been illegal before Walker committed his political high crimes, is making life better for all.
“The great irony is that Act 10 has created a marketplace for good teachers”
Which will ruin public education, according to many of the commenters to the article.
More grabbing women by the hair.
Ann
Why on earth did you pull out the gender tag when the article was completely neutral? Was it just a personal need to get a gender discussion going instead of actually discussing the merits of the proposed plans?
There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of very qualified people who could teach. Professor Althouse, for example, would be an excellent English or Political Science teacher but should could not teach in the public schools where I live even if she wanted to do it for free. No certificate. Ditto the legions of retired business executives, accountants, etc.
Unions do not give one shit about kids or their education.
@Michael: My mother, who is a retired Madison teacher, believes that your idea is a Koch brothers plot. To what end, I do not know.
I find it interesting that they will give $4,000 extra for a masters degree.
I don't really have a problem with that and think it may even be a good idea. But ONLY if the degree is in the subject they are teaching. For example, a history teacher getting a history Masters. A science teacher getting a science masters and so on.
The article didn't say this was the case.
The racket now is for teachers to get master's degrees in education. Some states even require it for ongoing certification.
This is a complete scam. Education masters programs are contentless and non-rigorous.
They are supported because:
1) Parents think that their kid's teacher having a masters degree is impressive and a good thing.
2) They are an excuse for teachers to ask for more money from the taxpayer.
3) They are a way for colleges to earn more money.
4) In many cases the programs are paid for, partially or fully by the taxpayer. That makes it a scheme for colleges to extract more from the taxpayer.
Schools of education are pretty well useless and a BA from one of them should be a disqualification, not a qualification, for teaching. Grad schools are even worse.
Full disclosure: I have an MS in Business Education. It is a top rated school but that is sort of like being the meanest Smurf. I also have 1-1/2 MBAs plus a BBA as well as 22 years teaching in an MBA program and in an Industrial Engineering program.
Unlike pretty much everyone else who claims that schools of education are rigorous and useful, I have something to compare them to.
Burn them all down!
John Henry
Schools of education are pretty well useless and a BA from one of them should be a disqualification, not a qualification, for teaching. Grad schools are even worse.
Agreed, especially grad Schools.
To get a PhD is Education/Ed Psych/whatever, you take a hare-brained idea, apply it to a small sample size, use questionable statistics (usually t-tests) to "prove" it, and then apply it to public schools as the latest flavor of the day.
And you sign all your emails with a PhD appended to it.
(Sincerely, MadisonMan, PhD)
I have a teaching certificate in technology education. Most people, including other teachers, are misinformed about what it is. The field covers four areas, manufacturing, construction, transportation, and communications. Communications is the only part that has much to do with stand alone computers. A good program will teach students how to build a small shed, program a scaled down CNC milling machine and an industrial robot, build and launch a model rocket, and other fun stuff. Most school districts won't support it. What they really want when they say Technology Education, is a glorified keyboarding class with maybe some MS Office and HTML thrown in.
Hey Ken,
Sounds like you do a lot of what I do. I don't do it as an educator but for industrial clients.
If you ever want to exchange ideas or if I can help you with any info, videos, pictures etc, let me know.
Drop me an email offlist at johnfajardohenry@gmail.com and let's chat.
We need more people like you in education. One of the biggest problems I hear from machine builders and manufacturers is that they can't find qualified employees. The CNC programmers you mention, the roboticists and so on.
Or even good carpenters, electricians and pipefitters.
John Henry
"Unexpectedly a market force, that had been illegal before Walker committed his political high crimes, is making life better for all."
Free markets always work.
Right now teacher's pensions are so attractive that people continue teaching long after they have lost all enthusiasm for it to cash in on a lottery-winner type pension.
Depends on what state you teach in. Some states, Texas for one, allow you to receive either a teacher's pension or social security. Not both. If you teach for 40 years it can be good, but not great. If you start teaching later in life and have paid into social security you can be screwed by the windfall elimination provision which offsets your social security. Even if you pay into social security you may not get any of it back. You can't get both.
John.
I haven't had an apprentice to train in 15 years. Young people just aren't interested. Ive had a lot of kids come in and demand a journeymans pay without the necessary education.
Oh well. I'll be out of it in another seven or eight years.
(Sincerely, MadisonMan, PhD)
Thread winner.
Our school district has moved to a market based salary system. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the 2-6 grade teachers because they are at the bottom of the totem pole. The Special Ed teachers are at the top, along with the HS level math and science teachers.
MadMan,
Hey, at least your sig doesn't read "MadisonMan, Ed.D."!
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