October 2004

The annual round of pay negotiations between the government and teachers was completed recently with primary teachers getting a 8.74 per cent pay rise over three years and, in September, secondary teachers also accepted a three-year package.

The secondary teachers’ package was worth $270 million and gave salary increases of up to 13 percent over the three years. It also included $7.5 million in bonuses to union members. 

The primary teachers’ union (NZEI) has a web page devoted to the 2004 negotiations.

The secondary teachers’ union (PPTA) statement is at this web page.

Opposition Education spokesperson Bill English called the $7.5 million bonus a bribe and said parents wanted “to see teachers rewarded for competence and hard work, not for union membership.”

Pay Movement Comparisons Between the Private, Public and Education Sectors 1993-2001

To give a wider perspective on teacher remuneration, we highlight articles and papers that look at a range of ways to structure teacher pay.

In an Otago Daily Times opinion piece, NZ Business Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr argues that “… we would almost universally agree that good teachers are underpaid. The remuneration system has little flexibility. The bulk of pay is tied to qualifications and the number of years a person has been standing in front of the classroom. No other profession pays this way.”

An Australian government review last year of teaching and teacher education has found that teacher salary advancement should be based on teaching performance and career structures, with better recognition for proficient teachers and highly-accomplished teachers.

A study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has found that teachers’ pay-for-performance incentives can have a significant effect on students’ achievements in English and maths.

A CNN article reports on a high-powered US commission of government, business and education leaders calling for performance pay for teachers, as well as an increase in base salary for all teachers to make the profession's pay more competitive; new paths for teachers to boost their pay and responsibilities without leaving the field; and financial incentives for teachers to serve in hard-to-staff schools or take on high-demand subjects.

"Lawyers do it, engineers do it, business people do it," says commission head Lou Gerstner. "All professional people ultimately come up with methodology to judge the difference between great performance and mediocre performance. Just because it's hard doesn't mean we can't do it.

The Washington DC-based Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) argues that without real opportunities for advancement good teachers and talented people considering teaching as a career in the United States will be lured to other professions.

In its paper, Better pay for better teaching: making teacher compensation pay off in the age of accountability, the PPI argues that the scarce resources for teacher pay are not effectively used – "Pay teachers more and tie higher pay to what schools need from teachers to improve student learning”.

Harvard academic and education policy expert Ed Lazear, who visited New Zealand last year, argues that uniformity of pay across different subject areas and the tendency to compress teacher pay and pay everybody essentially the same has caused problems.

In his book Education Matters: Government, Markets and New Zealand Schools, author Mark Harrison sets out how the current centralised and politicised government monopoly on schooling wastes resources, discourages good teaching, inhibits parental involvement, suppresses information and stifles innovation.

In a recent opinion piece in the National Business Review, Dr Harrison argues that teachers should support the market when it comes to pay.

“In a centralised system, there are few rewards for good performance and a lack of sanctions for poor performance. The result is the able are most likely to prefer occupations where pay is more closely related to productivity, and the least able have an incentive to become teachers,” Dr Harrison says.

Education Forum policy advisor Norman LaRocque argues that teacher shortages will be an annual fixture until the education system's outdated pay structure is dumped and an NZ Education Review article expands his arguments.

A 2000 Education Forum parliamentary submission argues that no credible reasons were provided for the abolition of the bulk funding system for teacher pay, which had been of significant benefit to the schools concerned and which was the subject of agreements entered into voluntarily by schools in the interests of their own students.

A 2002 opinion piece by Gareth Morgan argues that we can’t tell what a teacher is worth as there is no market to determine what value they create “so the outcome of the current [2002] dispute will be an arbitrary impost on the taxpayer that may exceed or fall short of rewarding teachers their value to society.”

In March, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association approved a new collective bargaining agreement that will pay the district’s 4,500 teachers for improving student achievement – in other words, their pay will be dependent on their performance.

The US-based National Center for Policy Analysis argues that a lack of a pay premium for the best teachers has reduced the attractiveness of teaching in the US

A recent online chat was conducted by the US online publication Education Week, where interested teachers and policymakers across the US weighed in with thoughts on new approaches to teacher pay and the impact of pay-for-performance type plans on teaching.

Performance-based compensation can help transform teacher development is part one of a discussion paper by the South-East Center for Teacher Quality, and Performance-based teacher compensation: learning from the lessons of history is part two.

Pay for performance: what are the issues? The Education World website looks at merit pay, performance pay, and knowledge- and skill-based pay.

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