Equal Time: Maintain control at local level; link pay, performance

President Barack Obama could be the Energizer Bunny. In fewer than 100 days in office, he has rolled out one significant policy after another, including how to tackle public education.

Spurring true education reform, however, is a task for the states and local school systems. As we have seen with No Child Left Behind and other well-meaning efforts, it is not the role of the federal government to insist on specific changes to what happens in a classroom in Cartersville, Ga., or Evansville, Ind.

President Obama, however, does have some good concepts that are worth applauding. He supports more charter schools and, even more astounding, he supports the concept of competition — in the form of a performance-based compensation system for public school teachers.

In the case of the latter, the success of such a program, endorsed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, should be a model in which monies are sent in the form of block grants to the states and local school systems to devise their own pay-for-performance plans.

In the case of Georgia, for example, we are already developing our own proposal to pay higher salaries to attract more teachers into shortage areas of math and science — critical fields where students often score below par on standardized tests.

What makes the president’s endorsement of compensation for teachers exciting is that it breaks the cookie-cutter model of equal compensation for all. Teachers are currently paid in a rigid, lock-step salary schedule that reminds one of the old Soviet Union.

As a former state Board of Education member, I came to realize that teachers get paid more based on inputs — their experience and credentials — instead of how their students fare in the classroom. If I ran my business that way, I would soon be out of work. My high performers would leave if they were paid less than their worth, and my lowest performers would stay because they were paid more than their value.

Stanford University economist Caroline Hoxby found that the biggest reason why many of our best and brightest college students do not enter teaching is because teachers are not paid for their individual value.

The reality is that incentive compensation systems are complex and require payment plans designed by professionals to ensure desired outcome.

Unfortunately, the president tempered his ideas by proposing a process that appears to be more political than businesslike. It sounds good to have everyone at the table, but this process should be driven by salary experts and not education experts. If not, we will wind up with something akin to the AIG model in which everyone will get taxpayer-funded bonuses, and mediocrity and failure will be rewarded on the backs of taxpayers.

In addition, the grading model must be two-pronged. It must not only reward teachers who improve student achievement but who have students that meet academic standards.

Transparency is also important. Gainesville City Schools are a good example. There, student achievement is available online. That, too, provides competition and motivates teachers.

Gov. Sonny Perdue has a plan pending before the General Assembly to pay teachers additional sums based on improved student achievement as well as higher salaries to those who fill the shortages in math and science.

In addition, the General Assembly already adopted something known as an IE2 proposal in 2008 that permits school boards to begin to experiment with teacher compensation programs among many other things.

Paying teachers who show improved student achievement and providing supplements for those teaching in critical shortage areas will attract more dynamic individuals into teaching.

It will also reward high-quality individuals who are currently teaching now — yielding a superior return on our massive investment in public education.

Georgia’s suffering economy can no longer afford the status quo in public education. Just like charter schools, competition in teacher compensation will shake up the education model. Pay-for-performance may be another step in bringing competition into the education marketplace that dramatically improves test scores and allows Georgia to develop a globally competitive education system.

If politicians can resist special interests and Washington can relinquish its desire to micromanage such a program, then we have a shot of taking Obama’s and Perdue’s ideas and helping teachers and students.

• Dean Alford, a former Georgia House member, is vice chair of the State Board of the Technical College System of Georgia.