The New York Times reported earlier this year on efforts to mend some of the fences broken during tussles over
questions of teacher compensation, but wide gaps still exist between the two positions.
Not exact matches
The
compensation of the average public school
teacher relative to alternate occupations is, in a sense, a secondary
question.
Questions about how to value experience, education, certification, and pedagogical skills — the big four
of teacher inputs — have created one
of the most highly contentious fields
of inquiry in education, particularly since they have clear implications for the design
of teacher compensation systems.
One
of those
compensation questions will be a
teachers union contract that is now several years expired.
At the very least, this calls into
question the meaning
of published data on
teacher compensation.
Many members
of the general public and the policy community believe that school districts are going bankrupt,
teachers are underpaid, and educator layoffs are rampant (see «The
Compensation Question,» forum, Fall 2012, forthcoming).