Oregon Public Broadcasting

This month, both major presidential candidates floated ideas about how to pay teachers. Even raising the subject tends to rattle the cage of some educators.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain say compensating teachers should go beyond how long they’ve been teaching, or what degree they’ve got.

In Oregon, a few school districts are already trying some new things.  Rob Manning reports.

A little over a week ago, Senator Barack Obama got a warm reception from the American Federation of Teachers. He suggested paying instructors more if they teach in poor schools, or if they learn new skills.

Barack Obama: “And whether it’s the plans AFT helped create in Cincinnati or Chicago, you’ve shown its possible to find new ways to bump teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them.”

But when Obama articulated a similar message to the other big teachers’ union, the National Education Association, some members weren’t happy.

Barack Obama: “I know this wasn’t necessarily the most popular part of my speech last year....”

Even though the NEA includes many Oregon teachers, the attitude you’ll find in some school districts here, is more friendly.

This summer, teachers and administrators in Sherwood are working on a plan to offer teachers higher pay, if they do something extra.

Eric Beasley is a Sherwood teacher on special assignment. He says the old tenure-and-training aspects of compensation aren’t going away.

Eric Beasley: “We’re just adding a third way for new teachers and experienced teachers to be compensated for, as they gather these evidences of professional practice.”

Beasley says professional practice might mean mentoring a younger teacher, if you’re an experienced one. New teachers might serve on school committees, or get extra training. Beasley says he hears what his district is already doing in Obama’s recent speeches.

Eric Beasley: “He did talk about local control, he talked about mentorship and engaging in professional practice. There’s probably one point, where he talked about if teachers are excelling in the classroom, that can be rewarded as well, or if students are achieving that can be rewarded, that’s a point where our plan doesn’t look at that as specifically.”

Senator John McCain recently spoke more pointedly about connecting pay to student achievement, when he addressed the NAACP, last week.

John McCain: “We will award bonuses to our highest achieving teachers. And no longer will we measure teacher achievement by conformity to process. We will measure it by the success of their students.” 

McCain also supports putting local school principals in charge of bonuses. Sue Hildick is president of the Chalkboard Project, the non-profit funding the Sherwood pilot. She’s skeptical of that part of McCain’s plan.

Sue Hildick: “I think the key is that it’s not just one person evaluating and recommending a performance increase. I think what you’re seeing in the Sherwood system is right, there are lots of checks and balances, and we think that’s important to reassure the teacher in the classroom that it’s not an arbitrary system.”

Chalkboard is following McCain and Obama closely because one of them will control federal money for extra teacher pay. Meantime, teachers in Sherwood, say that national interest in teacher pay won't stop them from pursuing their own efforts.

How many more districts will join Sherwood, though, could depend on whether Chalkboard and local districts can secure federal funds. And those decisions will likely rest with education officials serving the new president.