Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Sunday, December 17, 2006
Would teachers trade pensions for big pay?
A group called the Commission on Skills in the Workplace wants to cut a deal with teachers — and the promise is salaries around $100,000 a year for experienced teachers.
The catch? To get the money teachers would have to give up their pensions and go with a traditional 401-K retirement plan.
The group has put forward a lot of interesting ideas in a report that warns of dire consequences without drastic change in the way we educate kids. More comment on the report can be found at Joanne Jacobs’ blog and at The Education Wonks.
The commission includes New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York school chief Joel Klein, former education secretary Rod Paige and former Michigan Gov. John Engler. It was funded in part by the Annie Casey and Gates foundations.
Some of the other ideas the report argues for are charter-like schools given autonomy with the hope they will innovate and allowing some kids to move on from school after 10th grade. One immediate criticism is that many of these ideas are not new and to some extent the recommendations are a hodge-podge or recent reform ideas.
But the teacher pay proposal intrigued me. In theory, the system would work like this. Teachers would start at much higher pay — at least $45,000 — and could earn over $100,000. But instead of a system that rewards longevity with comfortable retirement, teachers would be on their own to finance retirement through a 401-K. And, at least in theory, the innovative, charter like schools would weed out low performers more effectively, rewarding the best teachers with the highest pay. The report argues this system would attract more talent to the teaching profession.
So tell us, teachers, would you opt for this type of system and trade the retirement security for better financial rewards in your work years? Do you believe much more pay would attract better talent?
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