DC Teachers Contract: Probably Good for DC, Probably Meaningless Elsewhere
Having been an historian I’m inclined to take the long view. While I think the new DC teachers contract is a positive development, it’s being way oversold in the press (how soon they forget Cincinnati).
I wrote the following for the National Journal blog:
The DC public school system has been a train wreck for many years, but the district hasn’t lacked for attempts to remedy the situation. I remember the efforts of the DC Financial Control Board and its appointment of General Julius W. Becton to run the schools in 1996. The city has maximum class sizes of 25, boasts a thriving charter school network, instituted a short-lived private school voucher program, and still has mayoral control. It shouldn’t surprise anyone to see an experiment with performance-based teacher pay and retention in DC.
As Bill Turque of the Washington Post reported, the teacher contract that expired in 2007 contained a host of measures designed to improve collaboration, mentoring and school turnarounds. So while the new contract has received an extraordinary amount of media exposure, little context has been provided about what preceded it.
The press showered most of its attention on the proposed voluntary performance pay program for teachers, but the contract offers almost no specifics, other than the promise that teachers in the program will rank “among the highest compensated educators in the nation.” Private foundations will support the program financially, which forces us to ask whether those who are paying the piper will call the tune. The education establishment will worry about private entities with veto power over a public school policy. Education reformers will worry that the private entities will end up spending tens of millions of dollars on a performance pay program that won’t deserve that designation.
The other newsworthy provision in the contract is the one that diminishes the importance of seniority when teaching staff is reduced. A teacher’s evaluation, skills and qualifications, and contributions to the education program will be factored into the decision along with years in service.
This provision didn’t come cheaply. Tenured teachers who are “excessed” will have a choice of early retirement if they qualify, an additional year on the payroll as “instructional support,” or a $25,000 payout (with the freedom to reapply for hiring after three years).
The overwhelming vote in favor of the contract by DC teachers has little to do with these provisions and everything to do with the 21.6% pay increase over five years. Few reporters and pundits seem to have noticed that three of those five years have already passed – the term of the contract is 2007-12. More than half of that money is for work that has already been done. What’s more, retroactive payments will be made to teachers who are no longer working in DC.
The financial incentives to enroll in the voluntary performance pay program will have to be significant, since brand-new teachers who don’t enroll will receive a minimum salary of $51,539 in the 2011-12 school year – and those with 21+ years of experience will earn up to $106,540.
Will the new contract lead to improved performance of D.C. schools? Let’s hope so. But its extraordinary cost makes it an unlikely model for other U.S. school districts.
