Former MD Superintendent on teacher salaries

Gates Foundation’s Education Deputy: Reform Teachers’ Pay Structure

 ...Dr. Deasy is the recently hired deputy director of education for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and former superintendent of Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland. He was an afternoon speaker at Santa Clara County Office of Education’s Charter School Summit...

...Deasy said there is a “currency of privilege” for those parents in the know and with the highest education levels to have the ability to make certain their children receive the best teachers in the school at each grade level. This practice obviously flies in the face of equity for all. Students who live in circumstances of poverty do not get the best teachers. SJ 2020 take note.

Deasy said we know who the best teachers are in each school. The most effective teachers, about 25% of a school’s faculty, get more than a year’s growth per student for a year of study.  We must turn schools into a culture of performance rather than one of compliance, Deasy opined.

In order to make this critical transition we must change the manner to which we use public money to fund teacher salaries. Those teachers with highly successful skill sets for increasing student achievement for all their students are not compensated well enough in today’s salary structure practices.

It will not take more money to be poured into the system of public education, but a reallocation of the way we currently spend our bucks.  For example, Deasy said $8.4 billion dollars nationally goes into compensate teachers with a Masters (MA/MS) degree yet there is no relationship between a MA degree and increased student achievement. Of course, we also compensate teachers based on the number of years of experience and the number of units accrued beyond a BA degree, yet there are no corollaries to increases in student achievement for either. School districts spend 1.5% of their certificated salaries for what is called “step and column” movement each year....