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The Forum > Article Comments > What a performance about paying teachers! > Comments

What a performance about paying teachers! : Comments

By Ian Keese, published 23/4/2007

The millions of dollars, spent on politically correct pseudo-issues, could have been spent on improving the education of students.

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re HRS' comment:
"At this following government web-site, you will find many statistics relating to girl and boy student performance.

http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/policy_initiatives_reviews/key_issues/boys_education/boys_education_research_and_websites.htm

I cannot find any statistic that shows that the performance of boy students have improved over the last 30 years, while there are some statistics that show that girl students have improved in some areas, although only marginally."

So I guess we're just holding our own near the top of the OECD countries - no improvement.

What does this say in favour of all those tutoring centres springing up around Australian towns? Are they really doing any good for the children, or are they simply helping some parents feel like they're doing the right thing?

And if the buildings the tutoring centres are renting are negatively geared, then the Australian Taxpayer is getting double-dipped yet again for all those deductions, and no evidence of value for money!

I say, no evidence of improved results on standardised tests of the students attending, no tax deductions for the tutoring service!
Posted by Sir Vivor, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 9:31:09 PM
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Billie,

In June 1963, the equivalent salary for a top of the scale teacher was 210.5 per cent of male average weekly earnings – considerably more relatively speaking than after the Whitlam years.

HRS,

I do not believe that there has been a dramatic decline in educational standards over the last thirty years, but let us accept that there has for the purpose of argument. Let us also accept, purely for the purpose of argument, that this decline is the fault of teachers, rather than any other social factor. Note that over those 30 years, teacher pay has been cut, relative to average earnings, by between 28 and 40 per cent. Does it not make sense that a dramatically declining salary will lead to people with ability choosing another career? Does it not therefore also make sense that restoring salaries to the levels of the past would improve the ability of those joining teaching? Note also that the period of claimed decline in standards is the period in which the centralised system gave way to schools as the private fiefdoms of principals, who now spend budgets as they wish, determine their own staffing levels and leadership positions, choose their own teachers, put their own teachers through time-consuming review processes, pay their own teachers at the salary levels they determine, etc. Does it not seem obvious that this long-term empowering of principals has failed utterly to improve the education of children? Is it not therefore obvious that we should move towards a centralised system in which the education department set standards and procedures for all schools and in which pay levels are set consistently between schools?

Performance pay was used in the nineteenth century, when it was called payment by results. It did not work. It was dropped.
Posted by Chris C, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 10:58:22 PM
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Liz,

You could nominate one single teacher that has every said anything positive about the male gender, or said anything positive about boys as a group. I have yet to find one.

I have heard directly from teachers describing boys, and I find it incomprehensible how they have ever become a teacher. I have also seen countless statements from feminists attached to the education system maligning and denigrating males, and how they retain their places in the education system is beyond belief.

Sir Vivor,

Most people are paid according to the skills they are using. Teachers may be entitled to a pay increase. It depends on what skills they are using.

For teachers to be awarded a pay increase based on performance, then they have to increase their performance. Their increase in performance has to be measurable, because the pay increase is measurable.

The education system has to be sustainable. It costs money to educate a child, and when that child reaches adulthood, they have to be able to pay the money back in some form of tax. If that is not done, then the education system becomes non-sustainable.

If teachers want a pay increase, then this adds costs to education, so teachers would have to state how that money is going to be paid back
Posted by HRS, Friday, 27 April 2007 8:29:42 PM
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I am afraid that Sniggid, by throwing around labels like “socialist view of the world” and “Labor/Union Party Flag” only muddies the waters and leads him to not reading what I actually wrote in my last post :

”The one thing that I am suggesting is that, SUBJECT TO CLEARLY SPECIFIED CRITERIA, it should be possible for teacher’s salaries to continue to rise after the present 9-10 year plateau.” i.e I am actually arguing for performance pay for the best teachers

I have been involved for two years in the Quality Teaching Awards Program in NSW (link in original article) where I have been assessing teachers who are the best of the best. This is done by a portfolio, and a day school visit involving lesson observations, interviews with parents, students, school executive and teacher. The best summation has come from the students themselves and the whole system is a tried model for some form of performance pay.

I criticised specific policies of both Nelson and Bishop, but I would probably do the same with the Labor Party Policy if I had any idea what its policy was. And while Unions, whether of Public or Independent School Teachers play an important role in a Democratic Society, they are only one of many stakeholders in a good education system.

I understand the concerns by HRS and Sir Vivor about how this will be financed, but we must remember two things:

(1) All money Governments spend is OUR money, and if we think it could be better spent we should say so. My recommendation is to reduce the duplication of a National Education Body that seems to be running a war against State Bodies and use that money saved on Bureaucrats to reward the outstanding dedicated teacher at the chalk face. (That doesn’t seem socialist clap-trap to me)

(2) The benefits to a society of quality teaching in terms of economic prosperity and social harmony are both obvious but at the same time very complex to characterise because they are so widespread and so diverse.

Ian Keese
Posted by Ian K, Friday, 27 April 2007 9:44:01 PM
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Ian K,
Your Quality Teaching Awards system does seem a move in the right direction, for a teacher to be awarded a pay increase over and above their base salary.

The next step would be to identify what methods the “best of the best” teachers actually use, and then to teach other teachers to use those methods also. Once the other teachers are using those methods, then they could get a pay increase. That would be a part of continuous improvement.

I also think that teachers saying that they improve society is very vague and indefinite. In many ways are society is declining. For example, I have heard recently that Australia now has the highest rate of youth suicide in the Western world, and most of these suicides are boys.

Should teachers get a pay increase because of that? I don’t think so, because at least some of that could be because of teacher’s attitudes towards the boys.

So the idea that teachers improve society is too indefinite to get a pay increase
Posted by HRS, Saturday, 28 April 2007 10:42:43 AM
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re HRS's comment:
"Most people are paid according to the skills they are using. Teachers may be entitled to a pay increase. It depends on what skills they are using."

I would prefer to see teachers who are "the best of the best" moved into a better-paid classroom mentoring and teaching role among other teachers, but of course there is no assurance that someone who gets "superior results" with their class will be an effective mentor or educator or trainer for other teachers.

And that's without examining what any one person calls "superior results".

I'm satisfied that teachers who are not "the best of the best", but who are "good enough"; teachers who have the skills required to organise and deliver content to a class over the school year, and to fairly measure the results of their efforts; can benefit from the collegiality of a shared classroom, and can become better trainers and educators. I expect that most teachers would appreciate the opportunity to make their professional lives more productive and rewarding, whatever their skills, talents and gifts.

But I am not about to hold my breath until any of these "good enough" and "best of the best" teachers get the wages and increments which are commensurate with their ability and responsibility; particularly with the current pattern of coupling between federal and state funding for human services.

As Ian Keese has intimated, the flow of federal funds to the states is far too vulnerable to political manipulation.

A federally mandated pay system which shared a shrinking pie among teachers who got paid according to their skills strikes me as very unfair. As it is, the pie is shrinking, and that's bad enough.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Saturday, 28 April 2007 12:43:06 PM
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