How to Reward Learning Leaders

If you’ve read my column, you know I not in love with the title of “teacher.” It suggests that the focus should be on the act of “teaching” something, instead of the value of “learning” something. I like “learning coach” or “learning facilitator” way more.

But, until we change our language around what we call our adult learning leaders, let’s spend some time looking at how “teachers” might receive more status in a country that, let’s face it, uses the teaching profession (if you even consider it a profession these days) as a scapegoat for most of what’s wrong with our K-12 public education system.

Last month, Karen Hawley Miles and David Rosenberg, from Education Resource Strategies, wrote an opinion piece for EducationWeek titled “Teacher Contracts Need to Change. And It’s Not Just About Money.” Mile and Roseberg write,

“Raising teacher pay remains a hot-ticket item – and for good reason. Many communities are still facing teacher shortages, and even after some recent pay increases, teachers continue to earn less than other professionals with a four-year college degree.”

“But even in the best of times, across-the-board pay increases are expensive and aren’t connected to educators’ actual impact on students. And declining enrollment and the loss of federal stimulus funds have made it difficult for district leaders to be effective stewards of community resources.”

“Fortunately, more than half of teacher contracts in 145 of the largest districts are due for collective bargaining in the next 12 months. Even in contentious bargaining environments, district leaders, union leaders, and rank-and-file educators could pursue contract changes that would make a big difference in addressing teacher retention and ensuring that students have effective, experienced teachers at every level:

First, increase teacher compensation but do it strategically:

Incentivize less-experienced teachers to stick around. Early-career teachers are more likely to leave their jobs than their more experienced peers, and they often cite low pay as a reason for leaving. A strategic salary schedule would include larger increases for teachers in years three through seven, offset by smaller steps for mid- to late-career teachers. Over time, this would shift more district funds toward retaining the teachers at the highest risk of leaving – just when they’ve finally climbed the novice-teacher learning curve.

Create or expand high-paying teacher-leader roles. Students need access to educators with the deepest expertise and a track record of success. Strategies like North Carolina’s Advanced Teaching Roles – in which the most effective teachers support the work and development of teams of their fellow educators – create career paths that pay significantly more, with leadership roles that include a mix of coaching, team leadership, and instruction. This lets experienced teachers positively impact more students without leaving the classroom.

Pay teachers more for taking on high-need roles. Teacher shortages are most acute in high-need schools and in special education, bilingual education, and high school math and science. Leaders can pay for effective teachers to pursue credentials in these areas and provide higher salaries for hard-to-staff roles. (The Dallas school district does this for bilingual teachers, and Alabama incentivizes math and science teachers in underserve ed rural areas). Reduce or eliminate ‘lane pay’ that retroactively compensates teachers for having advanced degrees, which don’t correlate with student learning. The savings could pay for these role-based incentives.”

“A second set of options addresses the root cause of shortages: For too many current and potential future teachers, the profession just isn’t attractive or sustainable. By updating sometimes rigid contract language, districts and teachers’ unions can work together to make teaching roles more flexible and collaborative, which we know supports improved instruction and boosts student outcomes:

Allow teachers to play more flexible roles. Contracts generally mandate full-time roles that fit into a standard school day. This ‘all or nothing’ approach force-fits educators into rigid, static, and isolating roles that don’t align with the realities of the workplace of today – or the future.

Differentiated roles can help educators share the work of planning, teaching, and assessing student performance. For example, ‘shelter-and-develop’ options for new teachers reduce the workload for novice educators while ensuring they get the additional early-career coaching they need from highly effective veterans.

Contracts can also allow for remote, temporary, and part-time roles that keep talented teachers in schools, leverage individual educators’ subject-matter expertise, and provide cost-effective ways to offer an engaging array of courses to students.

Open the door for more flexible schedules that incorporate time for planning, reflection, and refueling. Many contracts still dictate how teacher time should be sued on a minute-by-minutes basis each day, often in the context of rigid 45- to 50-minute periods. While intended to protect educators, this approach does not always respect teachers as professionals and reinforces the cycle of grueling days that leads to teacher burnout.

A more flexible approach would enable educator teams to reorganize learning time based on students’ day-to-day needs, better leverage technology in instruction, and allow for more time for planning and review of student work, laying the groundwork for educators to provide the differentiated supports students need.

Protect the teachers you need most. ‘Last in, first out’ layoff policies favor years of experience over all other priorities and ignore the fact that some teachers are simply harder to replace.”

“These are only some of the options available. It’s time to think beyond blanket salary increases as district leaders, labor leaders, and educators work toward the most important shared goal: ensuring all students have the opportunity to succeed.”

Or we could just pay learning coaches between $100,000 and $120,000 each, depending on their expertise and talent.

I know I sound like a broken record, but if we only applied our elementary model to secondary learners, one adult learning leader for every 20-25 young learners, then we could generate around $200,000 to $250,000 to serve as an annual budget for those young learners working on their reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development skills. After paying the learning coach, you would still have $100,000 to $130,000 left to support the learning plans of each of the 20-25 young learners.  That money could be spent on transportation, learning and production space, special teacher expertise (like physics, performing and visual arts, athletic coaching, etc.)

The unit of school would be overtaken by the unit of the individual learner, and everything would start with them. It’s rather simple if you begin with 20-25 young learners to every one learning coach or learning facilitator.

Why are we trying to make “teaching” more attractive when there are so many problems associated with the label? Instead, let’s break free from the old model and begin to explore a model that pays our best learning leaders a triple-digit salary.

Til tomorrow. SVB