Jovano's Op-Ed

Jovano Taitano
November 12, 2009
Christy Vance

When you think of teachers, the first thing we remember is the “impact a special teacher or teachers had on us- a teacher who refused to let us fall from the cracks; who pushed us and believed in us when we doubted ourselves; who sparked in us a lifelong curiosity and passion for learning”. (Michelle Obama) So it’s not surprising that the most influential people in our lives were the people who stand up every day in front of their classrooms.
The most standout issue that has been put off for way too long is the issue on teacher salaries. “The current system for paying school teachers in antiquated, counterproductive and in need of drastic reform” as stated by The Times.
A statement by Lewis Goldstein, Princeton Regional Schools’ assistant superintendent for human resources, stated: “People go into teaching not for the money it’s because they love it, their hearts are in it.” This may be true in some sense but in many sense Goldstein is wrong.
The teaching profession is for the most part a low-risk, high-reward career. The 10-month pay is pretty comfortable, and the health and the pension plans are pretty much unrivaled in the private sector.
“There are many teachers who are not happy with the way their salaries are. Teachers, no matter how well they performed, would receive the same bump up in pay if they were on the same step. Teachers with advance degrees translate into better performance, received even more. There is no incentive, anywhere, in any contract, for teachers to improve their performance in the classroom. If it weren’t for the personal pride or peer pressure, there would really be nothing to motivate a teacher to do more and do better. Right now, there is absolutely no reason why a teacher would not get by doing the absolute minimum required to get a satisfactory annual evaluation.”(Neil Brown, former teacher)
The current system of pay does nothing to encourage innovation and excellence, but creating a new system will. It would be a hard and long process to do so but getting a better pay for teachers would provide quality teachers, thus, encouraging them to remain with the school overtime. It is in their best interest. Some pay forms such as “differentiating pay based on content area is problematic; you simple cannot have separated salary structures for subjects like math, physical education and English. Negotiating contracts individually, in essence treating teacher like vendors, is also a non-starter, as well it should be.”(Neil Brown) Through my numerous studying and time on this issue, the only option is to divide up any negotiated salary increase so that a portion of it is given to teachers based on years of service and the remainder is set aside to reward performance.
The United States of America needs to understand this reality and create a bold new initiative to reinvent teacher pay schemes. “We need treat teachers like the professional they are by providing good salaries and high-quality professional development opportunities. And we need a government to support significant efforts to recruit and retain teachers and to reward high-performance teachers.”(Michelle Obama)