Money can’t buy you love, the saying goes.
But can money buy you a great teacher?
We are about to find out — if D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee pushes through her version of a teacher’s contract.
I was able to get my hands on the “information packet” put out by the Washington Teachers’ Union describing Rhee’s proposals. It spells out compensation and benefits and layoff procedures for the next five years for members of the public school system’s 4,200 teachers and staff.
If a teacher can measure up to Rhee’s standards and remain in the school system for five years — and get the maximum $20,000 bonus — he or she could be pulling down just under $100,000.
If a teacher can keep hitting marks to receive merit pay awards and can survive 10 years, annual pay could reach $122,520.
And if a teacher can hack the classroom for 15 years and continues to rate high performance, pay tops out at $131,000.
The devil is in the details of the contract. In order to receive the generous pay increases, teachers would have to prove their worth by improving student test scores, and they would have to impress monitors who would assess their classroom teaching prowess.
The chance to make major money comes for union members who choose the “green” system. It would turn teachers into high rollers at a craps table. New teachers would have to take the green path and stay on probation for perhaps four years; current teachers would go on probation for a year.
Teachers who forgo the risk for big dollars on the green route can chose the “red” system, which isn’t so bad. At five years, the top salary is $68,000, at 10 it’s $82,000 and by 15 years, it tops out at $96.995. Math is not my strong suit, but the spread between green and red is $30,000 after 15 years.
Rhee’s pitch is generous at many levels. It offers a 5 percent retroactive raise for last year and an 8 percent raise next year. Teachers in Arlington and Fairfax are getting 2 percent raises next year.
Seniority rules no longer apply to teachers who take either the red or green tracks. Anyone faces risk of getting “excessed,” but the greens are far more vulnerable. Another Rhee carrot: If a principal wants to let a teacher go, the contract triggers an open system of reporting, and the fired teacher can take a parachute of $25,000 or early retirement.
So what’s the catch? Teachers I interviewed wanted to know specifics on how achievement will be measured, how teachers will be evaluated, whether years of successful service will count for anything in Rhee’s new world.
“It would be stupid for me to sign my life away after putting in 22 years,” one Spanish teacher told me. “There are plenty of veteran teachers, great teachers, who deserve more respect.”
It’s tough to bargain for respect, but it might be as important as money and make Rhee’s contract easier to swallow.
