Comparable? EdWeek Wants to Give It a Go

Reading Bess Keller's article in EdWeek, "Proposed NCLB Rule on 'Salary Comparability' Draws Scrutiny," I can't help notice that she seems to think that the monies for Title II comparability could be used for a myriad of activities other than teacher salaries. The draft is pretty clear that state and local monies will have to be used to get Title I and non Title I schools to within 2 percentage points of parity regarding average salaries. There is no evidence to back her claims up as far as I can tell. The section in question follows:

"The draft provision is explicit that involuntary transfers of teachers would not be required to even out what is spent per school. In fact, the money would get added at a low-spending school would not have to be spent on salaries at all.

Possible uses of such a windfall for a school might be beefing up professional development or lowering class sizes with an eye to making the school a better place to work, supporters of the idea said. Or the money might provide bonuses to teachers who came or stayed."

I thought for a hot second that Premium Pay in Title II draft might resolve her argument, but that money is federal money that supplements not supplants local and state monies. I’m not sure what her argument is actually. Equity in teacher pay is a condition of receiving Title I monies—sure that money doesn’t have to be spent on teacher salaries because the salaries would already be comparable.

With this new type of comparability, the type that ED Trust has thrown their back and butt into, we seem to be moving away from the issue of highly qualified teachers and into the realm of more senior teachers—these are not the same thing.