From its earliest beginnings public schools have traditionally been taught by female teachers. Many believed that women were particularly well suited for this duty because of their capacity to care for and nurture their students. In the 1840s married women were typically relegated to house hold and childcare duties and were discouraged from seeking employment outside of the hearth and home. A young unmarried woman, however, could find respectable employment as a teacher, one of the few occupations available to them outside of the home. Catherine Beecher, an early women’s rights advocate once said that “God designed women to be the chief educators of our race…It is women who is fitted by disposition and habits and circumstances for such duties.” When these young teachers eventually married, however, they were expected to leave the profession and enter her proper sphere of influence as wives and mothers. Most female teachers were not expected to make careers out of their teaching jobs and it can be argued that the lack of advancement opportunities in education today can be traced back to the early feminization of the profession.
The education reform debate is complex and multifaceted, there are many proposals as to how to effectively improve student learning to include raising standards, holding teachers accountable for their student’s learning by tying their achievement on standardized tests to teacher compensation, lengthening the school year, decreasing class size, higher per pupil funding and activating market forces by giving students a choice as to where they can go to school by providing vouchers and promoting charter schools, but most would agree that the first and most important step to improve education is to make sure there is a high quality teacher in every classroom. The question becomes how do you attract the best and brightest into a profession that lacks prestige and opportunities for advancement? The New York Times recently wrote that “At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education.” Those individuals who posses the qualities the teaching profession is looking for have been lured away from teaching to careers that can offer real incentives for motivated individuals. There are few career paths for classroom teachers who desire to take a leadership role and become part of the process. Traditionally if a teacher wanted to take on more responsibility, earn more money and gain prestige they would go into administration. But for many teachers leaving the classroom is not an option, in addition it is these highly effective teachers that should stay in the classroom where their talents, knowledge and experience can be best put to use and shared with their colleagues and students alike.
Commenting in a video segment for TEACH.GOV the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, addressed the issue of teacher advancement and he stated that teachers have a variety of ways to advance in their careers including becoming a department chair, a master teacher, a coach, or going into administration. The status of department chair is often misunderstood, while many outside of the profession would equate it with a leadership position with real decision making opportunities and responsibilities, in reality department chairs have as much or as little responsibility as their administrators want them to have. If the building principal is a micromanager department chairs are relegated to the position of glorified messenger. In the Clark County school District there is no official directive concerning the duties and responsibilities of department chairs, there is no extra pay, perks or decision making associated with the position. Master teacher is a word that is thrown around a lot in education circles but no one is sure of its exact meaning. Clearly to be a master teacher one must possess a high degree of professionalism and the skills necessary to be a great teacher but who determines what that criteria is and who meets it? There is no license for master teachers nor is there published criteria describing what a master teacher is at the local, state or national levels. There is certainly no pay increment associated with master teacher status. A Master Teacher then is any teacher who would like to lay claim to the title. Becoming a coach may in fact have real leadership opportunities on the playing field but it has nothing to do with teaching and learning. Going into administration as stated before is not the best way to utilize the experienced teacher’s knowledge and expertise and while administrators certainly impact student learning, most would agree administrators are far removed from the classroom and are inundated with tasks and responsibilities that leave little time for teaching and mentoring.
The solution is intuitive. Create within the system a career path that does not take the teacher out of the classroom fulltime but involves the teacher in significant decision making processes, gives the teacher real responsibility and allows for the obtainment of status and prestige. This is not a novel idea, some of the best performing school systems in the world already have advancement opportunities for their best and brightest teachers. The International Summit on the Teaching Profession recently released a report titled “Building a High-Quality Teaching Profession: Lessons from Around the World.” In the world’s leading school systems teachers have a variety of paths for career advancement that involve “horizontal movement” that is a greater range of responsibility that does not take the teacher out of the classroom. I would create a system of teacher ranks much like the university system instead of the current system of automatic vertical steps based on longevity. All teachers would start as apprentice teachers and would receive considerable mentoring and on the job training through the first three. After the three year “probationary” period teachers may work through the ranks of assistant teacher, associate teacher, and finally master teacher.
Master Teachers would be required to have a minimum of fifteen years of above average performance ratings. In addition they will have obtained advanced degrees in their area of expertise, not education and they will be required to be Nationally Board Certified. They will be required to demonstrate a history of significant curriculum development and or action research. Master Teacher status will be highly prestigious due to the fact that Master Teachers will be relatively rare. Master Teacher’s will command prestigious salaries equal to that of the building principal, because in our culture we pay for what we value and we must send the message that we value our best teachers as much as administrators. Master Teachers will share office space and will have a secretary much like university faculty, this will further add to the prestige of the office and will send the message that Master Teachers are valued.
Master Teachers will have significant responsibilities in addition to their teaching load. One of the most important jobs they will do is serve as mentors for probationary teachers and those teachers deemed unsatisfactory. Master Teachers will be required to spend a considerable amount of time observing, counseling and coaching new teachers and as a result they will have a truncated teaching schedule. Master Teachers will be actively involved in the teacher review process working side by side with school administration evaluating other teachers. Master Teachers will bring expertise and experience to the evaluation process and will spend considerable time observing the teacher, which will provide the Master Teacher with the opportunity to provide constructive and meaningful feedback to developing teachers. This added responsibility will have the added benefit of freeing up administrators from evaluation responsibilities so that they can focus on other tasks. In addition Masters Teachers will write curriculum and conduct action research raising the level of professionalism and commitment of the position.
The Master Teacher position will help teachers and students in several substantive ways. First and foremost it will raise the overall professionalism of the field. The Master Teacher will serve as a paradigm of what an accomplished teacher should look like. There will be a high level of regard and status associated with the position so it will help to attract talented people into the profession and more importantly to keep them. It will send a clear message to the public that teachers are valued and play an integral role in our schools by having a highly visible example of teaching mastery. By commanding salaries that are congruent to administrator’s, Master Teachers will gain similar status and moving out of the classroom into administration will no longer be the only promotion a teacher can pursue. Having a career route that will enable a teacher to move up without necessarily moving out of the classroom will benefit other teachers in that Master Teachers will be able to share their years of experience, repertoire of teaching techniques, and resources with probationary teachers and teachers in need of remediation. In addition they will serve as gatekeepers of the teaching profession having a significant, although not final say, in determining whether or not a probationary teacher has what it takes to remain in the field. Having Master Teachers take an active role in the evaluation process will be of tremendous benefit to teachers because they will know that the person evaluating them truly possess the knowledge and experience in both content and pedagogy to accurately assess them. Unlike what commonly takes place in today’s schools, Master Teachers will not perform “fly by” evaluations, but will spend significant time with the teacher being evaluated to understand what came before and after the lesson under review and be able to suggest meaningful improvements. Master Teachers will provide ongoing classroom observations and elicit reflective teacher feedback on an ongoing basis; this will provide teachers with real opportunities to advance their craft with productive input and feedback. Ultimately the Master Teacher will benefit students by making sure that there is a high quality teacher in every classroom. The reforms stated earlier will all have direct and important consequences for students in that the Master Teacher’s focus is student achievement through development of the teaching staff and improved morale throughout the teaching ranks.
My proposal would require additional funding to pay for the Master Teacher position. However I believe that the costs associated with this proposal can be kept to a minimum through creative solutions and a serious examination of how we currently allocate our resources to various district level positions. District level administrators play a vital role in development of the district’s short and long term goals and planning to include staff development, purchasing, technology planning, strategic planning, public information, student transportation, student performance standards, and student assessments. While most would agree these areas are necessary for effective teaching and learning the question becomes are there redundancies and to what degree are these administrators necessary? For example The Clark County School District currently employs twenty three K-12 Teacher Development Coordinator IIIs at the average annual salary of $86,297 with the highest salary at $96,388 and the lowest at $73,244. I have been a teacher in the Clark County School District for almost nine years and I have no idea what that person does or how that job makes me a more effective teacher and as a corollary enables my students to learn better. There are dozens of district level administrators with a variety of titles who earn salaries in excess of $100,000. According to conservative journalist Thomas Sowell while America continues to spend more on its students than many industrialized nations fewer dollars actually reach the classroom due to inefficiency and bloated bureaucracies. I propose to take a closer look at these positions and to make the determination if these administrators are absolutely necessary to the school district’s mission. If not, then the positions should be cut and the funds allocated elsewhere.
Lastly schools could cut costs by having students perform a variety of tasks currently done by the custodians such as cleaning their own classrooms and common areas. This would imbue in the students a sense of ownership for their school and would lead to considerably less litter, graffiti, and other messes as students will not want to clean up after others and will therefore police their schools from unwanted litter bugs. This is not a new idea as students across Asia, particularly Japan and Taiwan, already do this. Too many students take their schools for granted and erroneously believe that resources to include textbooks and computers are provided to them without cost. If they abuse these materials they will simply be replaced.
Article 26 of the Negotiated Agreement between the Clark County Education Association (CCEA) and the Clark County School District (CCSD) will have to be amended to accommodate my reform proposal. Teachers would no longer receive an automatic pay increases every year up to fourteen years, or the scheduled horizontal step based on education attainment, teachers should not receive a raise based on a fixed schedule that in no way promotes student learning or the development of the teacher’s skill set, according to educational researcher Greg Moo there is no correlation between teacher longevity and student performance, and many teachers would concur that years in the classroom doesn’t always translate into better teachers. Instead pay will be based upon the attainment of the four academic ranks I have already highlighted to include assistant, associate, full teacher and lastly Master Teacher. As I have already noted each rank will have its own set of qualifications to include experience, and education level. I Propose that instead of paying teachers annual step increases the total amount of compensation currently negotiated will be divided up by the four academic ranks. Overall pay will not be changed just redistributed. For example the first rank of assistant teacher would start at the salary of $53,355 (step 4) assuming the teacher has met the qualifications to include passing the rigorous three year mentoring period. This salary will attract a wider more qualified pool of applicants and will have the ultimate benefit of creating competition for teaching jobs allowing administrators to become more selective of whom they place in a classroom, a teaching license and a pulse will no longer be sufficient qualifications for new teachers. After four years of exemplary service teachers may apply for the next rank of associate teacher at the salary of $60,236 (step 8) a full teacher will earn an annual salary of $67, 463 (step 12). One should note that teacher’s salaries have not been cut just readjusted. After fifteen years of service a teacher may begin the process of attaining Master Teacher status which will have the same compensation as the school’s principal. Education levels will also play a factor in advancement through the teacher ranks culminating in a Masters degree in the teacher’s major area of instruction. Education degrees will not count toward teacher ranks.
America cannot afford to lose the race of educational attainment, the stakes are too high, the costs too dear. As other nations continue to surpass American students in measures of educational attainment like the international PISA test the country needs to take a long look in the mirror and ask the tough questions about how we are educating our students and more importantly who is educating them. We must do a better job attracting the best and the brightest into the education field and I believe that my proposal does that. Motivated teachers want prestige and opportunities to advance two things sorely lacking in education today.
