It started with a Tweet: The starting salary for educators should be $100,000. In ten years time the U.S. would have the strongest and most powerful education system imaginable.
Ron Clark, a veteran educator and teacher guru whose career has spawned an inspirational teacher movie and a NY Times bestseller, proposed a seemingly logical idea that increasing teacher pay would "fix" America's "failing schools" by attracting and retaining the "best people" to the field of education. On the surface his proposal addressed many concerns about public education in the United States: teachers are underpaid, the country's education system is weak and ineffective, the nation's best and brightest don't become teachers because of low salaries, paying people more improves the quality of work they do, deficiencies in public education are simply a result of low funding for schools, etc. The market-based reform model for public education has gained much clout in the past two decades, as billionaire edu-philanthropists have convinced legislators and political pundits that they can fix schools by throwing money at the problem and running schools like a business. And, hey, what teacher or school administrator would be against paying teachers six figures to start?
Under scrutiny, however, with a little of the critical thinking we hope students learn, Clark's proposal and pie-in-the-sky optimism (ie. naivety) is a profoundly flawed idea.
The most obvious problem is Clark's implication that teacher performance/effort/effectiveness is driven by salary, as if current teachers are "holding back" on the really good instruction because they're not being paid enough. Or even worse is the idea that the top 2-3 million best teachers in the country aren't even in education because they can't make the big bucks there. This implication is nothing short of insulting to the numerous hardworking and effective teachers currently making a difference in America's classrooms. It also poses this question for Clark: how and why was he effective when he wasn't making $100K, especially in his first three years. The conventional wisdom (and research) indicates it takes three years to become truly effective in the classroom (with the same curriculum), and that teachers truly get better with age. That's why an apprenticeship model is actually a great idea for school improvement. The idea of paying a new teacher $100K fresh out of the gate - especially when 50% of teachers quit the profession in five years - seems to be a horrible business practice. Then there is the obvious question of fiscal sustainability for such teachers over a thirty-year-career. Where does the pay scale top out, and just how will it be funded in school systems that are already financially strapped?
The second glaringly obvious error in Clark's plan is the belief that simply throwing more money at the public education system - primarily in the salary area - will solve deeply complex sociological issues that impact a child's education and lead to low achievement and inequity in academic success. It's as if Clark is completely unaware of the shortcomings in corporate ed reform efforts by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. As the nation has been distracted by the Cambridge Analytics scandal at Facebook, it seems to have forgotten "Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million lesson," where the billionaire whiz kid was going to transform the schools of Newark, New Jersey into the best schools in the nation in a quick five years with his infusion of cash and business brilliance. It failed for all the obvious reasons. And, the original edu-philanthropist Bill Gates basically admitted that he wasted more than a billion dollars on his small schools reform. It's quite obvious that simple budget issues are not the reason that the US doesn't have Clark's "strongest and most powerful education system imaginable." Though, it's also worth noting that by many significant measures, we actually already do have that.
Finally, the mythical reverence Clark places on the figure $100,000 also negates his claim. First of all, a "hundred K" is not a uniform measure of a good salary nationwide. That sum is basically the "top end of middle class" in large parts of the country. An annual salary of $100K is practically rich in some parts of the country (and would be almost disproportionate for the work done) whereas it's simply a decent living in other areas, and in some major metropolitan regions it wouldn't even be sufficient to afford a one-bedroom condo and a car payment. With that in mind, it's worth noting that many teachers in many school districts nationwide are already making six figures and up. Currently, there are so many layers to the teacher salary issue with entire state's worth of teachers ready to strike over low pay and benefits whereas many areas defy the myth of the poorly paid teacher. And, there are so many places where students are doing incredibly well and teachers are achieving great success without six-figure salaries. That is certainly true when people look at education systems worldwide. When international comparisons are used to malign the US system, it's not because of teacher pay. In fact, when explanations for poor performance in American school are explored, it's the poverty of students, not the teachers, that emerges as the primary factor in low achievement and in achievement gaps.
Ultimately, Ron Clark's tweet is a minor and relatively harmless bit of "internet wisdom" that doesn't have much relevance to the discussion of public education. And, Clark, with his publications and website and speaking engagements and film receipts, doesn't really have much credibility anymore for discussions on teacher compensation. But it's worth scrutinizing claims like his because they only serve to muddle legitimate discussions about how to improve student achievement.
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