Q-Comp

In 2004, Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota made a series of education proposals, which included elements like performance pay for teachers and changes to teacher quality evaluation meant to help weed out ineffective teachers. Apparently, Pawlenty was disappointed to have only gotten through performance pay, in the form of Q-Comp, which is in operation in forty-four Minnesota school districts.

This is of great interest to me because I think that performance pay represents a necessary paradigm-shift. I think schools have already given themselves a chance in the last decade by rising to pay teachers a salary they can at least live off of, on which a family could conceivably survive. Schools are perhaps going to be able to exploit some of the momentum our generation is seeing built up (by us, in part) and could progress further, paying teachers fairly, rewarding those who are effective, identifying those who are not. In this way schools can invest in effective teachers and effective practices. It’s a myth that performance pay must be enslaved to standardized test scores. In Minnessota, schools have to propose a plan which satisfies about five different criteria, including job-embedded professional development and a stipulation that performance pay for teachers line up with a minimum of 60% of increases across the system. It didn’t offer too many detail, because it would seem those details are up to the schools or jurisdictions that are proposing to implement them. When these criteria are met, the schools in question receive and average of $200 additional per student.