July 11, 2008

Teacher pay plan turns into battlefield

Rocky Mountain News

Denver’s pick as host of the Democratic National Convention was seen by city education leaders as a chance to show off an urban school district in the midst of groundbreaking reform.

Now it may bring more embarrassment than acclaim.

The unique collaboration between Denver Public Schools and its teachers union that produced the nation’s first wide-scale pay-for-performance plan is in tatters, as the two sides squabble over how to spend the $25 million approved by voters to make the plan work.

ProComp, officially the Professional Compensation Plan for teachers, has been hailed from New York to Beijing for thoughtfully leading the nation’s foray into merit pay for teachers.

If it collapses, “People will say, we thought that was the one that was going to work,” said Paul Teske, dean of the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado in Denver. “If that didn’t work, is this really doable?”

‘Prepare to Strike’

Wednesday, DPS and union officials will meet with a mediator to set the agenda for negotiations scheduled Aug. 20-22. Three days later, on Aug. 25, the DNC kicks off with an estimated 30,000 guests and 15,000 members of the media.

“Prepare to Strike,” reads a headline in the latest issue of the teachers’ union newspaper The Slate, which also contains a notice for an Aug. 24 “all member meeting prior to the Democratic National Convention.”

But Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, denies the union is encouraging a strike during the DNC.

“We will be doing everything in our power to get to a fair and equitable settlement as quickly as possible,” she said.

Still, sentiment among some union members against DPS’ proposed changes to ProComp is strong. In May, union representatives from Denver schools voted “no confidence” in DPS Superintendent Michael Bennet. Some members circulated cartoons depicting Bennet beside a grave with a marker labeled ProComp.

One veteran teacher angry over the DPS proposal reported in an e-mail that she is “quietly, or not so quietly, making picket signs in my garage.”

A carefully crafted plan

Denver’s ProComp is unique among teacher pay plans because the district and the union spent more than seven years crafting it together.

Or, as presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has said repeatedly on the national stage, it was “developed with teachers, not imposed on them.”

“It really was a bottom-up negotiated district-level thing,” said Teske, who co-authored a book on ProComp.

“The union had a lot of buy-in. … if the union had voted no, that would have been the end of it.”

The result is a complex plan that builds a teacher’s salary based on nine components, from serving in a high- poverty school to completing academic research projects to increasing student test scores.

It also gives teachers a choice about participating — new hires must join ProComp but teachers already in DPS can opt in, or not, at various times. Slightly more than half have done so.

That system is a far cry from the salary ladder used for decades in most U.S. school districts, where all that matters are a teacher’s experience and education.

Teske said the simple fact that 59 percent of Denver teachers approved ProComp in 2004 had a ripple effect.

“People said, gee, unions everywhere aren’t opposed to this,” he said. “They can actually pass it.”

Collaboration to standoff

But if ProComp is credited with propelling some districts and states, even the federal government, into merit pay for teachers, the plan in Denver is under increasing scrutiny.

Bennet, who helped persuade voters citywide in 2005 to back funding for ProComp, wants to make changes.

Specifically, he wants to boost pay for teachers in the early years of their careers.

He cites statistics showing that, since 2005, nearly 95 percent of teachers’ voluntary resignations have been in their first 11 years.

He also wants to pour more money into two areas — bonuses for teachers willing to work in high-poverty schools and for those willing to teach hard- to-fill subjects, such as math and special education.

Those bonuses, $1,067 each in 2007-08, would nearly triple to $3,029.

“The $1,000 is not high enough,” Bennet said, “to drive differences in how people decide what they want to teach and where they want to teach.”

To fund his proposal, he wants to spend more ProComp money today. DPS estimates 23 percent of the $31 million in ProComp tax dollars and interest earnings in 2007-08 made its way to teachers’ pockets.

Is ProComp working?

By the end of 2008-09, the district estimates, the cash balance in the ProComp fund will be $87 million.

“We think that money should be spent on our teachers right now,” Bennet said.

Ursetta, the union president, calls the DPS proposal a “radical” change in a pay plan only two years old.

She also wants to increase bonuses in the same two areas — though not as high — but she disagrees with giving younger teachers more.

Ursetta also believes that the balance in the ProComp fund is needed to make future payments and that the DPS proposal could bankrupt the system.

“We’re willing to make changes, but we want to make them based on data,” she said. “We don’t have that data yet.”

An analysis of the first full year of ProComp — the 2006-07 school year — by University of Colorado School of Education researchers was inconclusive.

“In terms of improving student achievement, it’s far too early to say,” said Ed Wiley, who heads CU’s Procomp evaluation team.

The Obama factor

In fact, both Wiley and Teske admit there’s little hard data showing pay-for-performance plans anywhere have led to higher student test scores.

Sure, teachers who opted into ProComp produced slightly higher results on state exams. But, Wiley said, it’s probable those teachers joined ProComp because they believed they, and their students, were more likely to benefit from it.

So why even try it?

“I think the answer to that is actually pretty simple,” Teske said. “Do we think our current pay system is a good one? That every person who’s worked for 12 years in DPS and has a master’s degree should be paid the exact same amount?

“Even if we can’t measure outcomes perfectly,” he added, “we ought to think about aligning what we value in schools with what we pay teachers.”

Obama, meanwhile, no longer refers to ProComp.

In November, in a speech outlining his education platform, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee praised “cities like Denver” that have “proven by working with teachers … we can find new ways to increase pay.”

In May, after learning of stalled talks, Obama noted that “teachers in Denver are in the middle of tough negotiations right now” but said the city has “already proven” there are new ways to increase pay.

Last week, in addressing the National Education Association, Obama didn’t mention Denver.

Breaking down the ‘$150,000-a-year teacher’

As tensions have increased between Denver Public Schools and its teachers union, the two sides have argued over what DPS leaders call the $150,000-a-year teacher.

DPS refers to veteran teachers earning $140,000 or $150,000 or even $160,000 each year as they near retirement. Union leaders say those numbers are unfair.

Who’s right? It depends on how you look at it.

Example: A teacher with a master’s degree and 25 years of experience would earn a salary of $77,218 under ProComp, provided he or she receives the average bonuses awarded most teachers under the pay plan. That’s straight salary. DPS calculates that teacher actually would be earning $154,348 that year in total compensation. The difference of $77,130 refers to the amount that DPS is setting aside in that year for that teacher to receive after retirement.

Why does it matter?

DPS’ proposal to change ProComp is part of an attempt to get more money to teachers earlier in their careers. Under the district proposal, that same veteran teacher would receive less in salary and in total compensation — $848 less in annual salary and $1,695 less in total compensation that year.

Written by Nancy Mitchell
Published on July 11, 2008