Teacher pay one piece of education challenges

LIKE many Oklahomans, we support teacher pay raises. Ideally, any pay plan would address pressing needs first and reward the best teachers most of all.

But Oklahoma’s education problems don’t begin and end with teacher pay, and policymakers should not pretend otherwise.

Any pay plan should include a “merit pay” component providing bonuses or higher salaries to teachers who produce the best classroom results. A pay plan should be based on market reality. A recent study by finance site WalletHub found the average starting pay for an Oklahoma teacher ranks 19th out of 50 states after adjusting for cost of living. However, Oklahoma’s rank for average annual salaries for all teachers was No. 32.

A sensible pay plan wouldn’t give every teacher the same raise regardless of experience or classroom results. The WalletHub data suggests more money should be directed to increase the salaries of experienced teachers than first-year teachers, whose salaries are already competitive. Also, if it’s more difficult to hire a qualified science teacher than a history teacher, the pay for the science teacher should be higher. Supply and demand should not be ignored.

Passage of a sensible teacher pay-raise plan could have some benefit in Oklahoma schools, but it is only a single action out of many that must be taken. The Learning Policy Institute, a California-based think tank, found just 18 percent of teachers nationwide cited “financial reasons” as the cause of their departure. “Dissatisfaction” and “family/personal reasons” were cited by far larger shares. The latter two categories suggest the need for serious changes in the operation of many schools.

Teachers who work in schools where the principal or superintendent does not maintain discipline will be less likely to stay than those in well-run schools, regardless of pay. When teachers receive the same pay regardless of whether they put in extra effort or phone it in, the best teachers will become discouraged. When teachers see lawmakers place a higher priority on preserving unneeded administrative jobs, rather than redirecting those funds to teacher pay by enacting sensible consolidation in school administration, teachers aren’t wrong to conclude they’re not a legislative priority.

The success of Oklahoma’s third-grade reading/ retention law shows policymakers can generate school improvement — and increased parental involvement — through serious accountability measures. Similar accountability measures could have comparable impact on the aforementioned school environment problems, benefiting teachers and students alike.

We support school choice not only because it would give needy students a better chance at academic success, but also because it would increase demand for the best teachers in school environments where they can achieve success.

Oklahoma schools need streamlining, an injection of market forces and serious accountability. Critics say those ideas aren’t politically feasible. But our goal is not to endorse only programs that make life easy for politicians. Instead, it’s to advocate for policies that have best chance of producing the greatest improvement for children in Oklahoma schools.