Teacher Pay
Recommendation
Implement a merit pay system for teachers that will pay a portion of their salary based on the value they add to their students' academic performance, rather than on years of experience and credentials.
Background
Across-the-board raises and ABC bonuses reward both good teachers and mediocre ones, thus doing little to help students learn. ABC bonuses are an incentive program for teachers that are part of the state's school accountability program, the ABCs of Public Education.
North Carolina's average teacher salary is above the national average. Adjusted for cost of living, pension contribution, and teacher experience, the state's average teacher salary for a teacher on a 10-month contract is $993 higher than the U.S. adjusted median salary and $2,733 higher than the U.S. adjusted average salary.
The Need to Change How Teachers are Paid
• Teacher pay increases have outpaced inflation and state employee pay raises. Since the 1991-92 school year, teacher pay has increased by 85.9 percent, while the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 47.5 percent. State employee compensation increased by 35.2 percent during the same period.
• Across-the-board raises will not improve recruitment and retention. Higher pay may only be able to reduce North Carolina's already below-average annual turnover rate from 12.3 percent to 11.9 percent.
• ABC bonuses have failed in their stated intention. ABC bonuses were supposed to connect teacher rewards to real gains in student achievement. Based on last year's testing results, the state will award bonuses to all administrators and instructional personnel in over 100 schools that had less than 60 percent of their students achieve a passing score on end-of-grade or end-of-course tests. Over 700 schools will receive bonuses despite a 60-80 percent pass rate.
• An entitlement program is tied to a weak accountability system. Considering North Carolina's history of low state testing standards, the ABC bonuses have been easy to earn. The system does not reward individual excellence. In the past, ABC bonuses have been awarded to as many as 94 percent of the schools in the state.
• ABC bonuses have drained valuable resources from our schools. Between 1997 and 2007, the General Assembly appropriated $988 million for ABC bonuses, money better spent on a merit pay system that rewards our best teachers.
• Merit pay could be used as an incentive for the best teachers. Merit pay could lure our best teachers into low-performing schools. Guilford County has implemented a promising merit pay program that awarded bonuses of $9,000 or more to experienced math teachers in 11 schools with low-income students.
Analyst: Terry Stoops
Education Policy Analyst
919/828.3876 • tstoops-at-johnlocke.org
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