Teacher pay still a mystery for now

State Education Director Jason Glass has been asking to “elevate the conversation” about changing teacher pay.

But he's been awfully stingy so far with the details that would help make such enlightened discussion possible.

So I was relieved this week when he finally started anteing up information about his plans for our fair state.

But it was only just a start - there's still a lot to know.

Although Glass is spearheading comprehensive K-12 reform, he's never far from discussion about how Iowa pays its teachers.

He's fond of carving out for himself a large, vague space between two evils: The traditional system - which compensates teachers based on education and years of experience - and cash-for-test-score schemes.

In a meeting with The Gazette this week, he finally started getting down to brass tacks - describing a career-ladder compensation system that would flatten out teacher's earnings over the course of their career - offering higher wages to start and making increases dependent on merit.

Some school districts have adopted career-ladder systems and are perfectly pleased with the results. But Glass is proposing something that's never been attempted on this scale in the United States.

It's an incredibly ambitious plan that he admits - despite pooh-poohing my recent column about the need to adequately fund reform - is going to cost us money up front.

How much money, he wasn't exactly sure.

So let's look instead at the results of a 2008-09 career-ladder pilot program at some Cedar Rapids schools.

An evaluation of that pilot showed it cost nearly $400 per student, or $4,500 per teacher, to support that program in any meaningful way.

It's also interesting, if not statistically significant, that the pilot showed no increase in student achievement. And that teachers, when asked what they liked about the pilot, cited the time it afforded for professional learning - not the pay.

But that's another conversation for another column, I guess. So, too, the question of how we might actually measure teacher merit on a statewide scale.

Hey, I'm just glad we finally have something to talk about.

We all want the same thing here: Excellent schools that spend money wisely and do right by Iowa's kids. So keep the information coming, Mr. Glass.

I'm all for raising the teacher pay discussion, but you have to ante up.

Comments: (319) 339-3154;

jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net