Paid on a curve

Hard work will be rewarded. Bright young teachers will be empowered. Hanging on to a job for years will no longer be the fastest way to advance up the pay scale.

Such were the optimistic assessments of the vote taken earlier this month in Denver, when schoolteachers there broke rank with national teachers' unions to approve one of the nation's first compensation packages linking their pay to student performance - a concept the public may love, but teachers' unions have generally resisted.

Of course the decision is not without controversy. Even some who embrace pay for performance criticize this plan for not going far enough. But there are others who predict that Denver's ability to get its teachers on board will spur other school districts nationwide to move in the same direction.

"It's an invitation to policymakers to point their fingers at their own teachers' unions," says Michael Allen, a program manager on teacher issues for the Education Commission of the States in Denver. "It's a wedge."

In a close vote, Denver teachers approved a compensation plan that would phase out the old pay scale, in which salaries were based on teachers' education and experience. It will be replaced with one that combines a base salary and cost-of-living increases with financial rewards for meeting certain goals, including student-performance objectives.

Under the new plan, which must be approved - and funded - by Denver voters, teachers would receive a set-percentage pay increase for completing an additional degree, or becoming nationally certified, for working in a poorly performing school, or for exceeding expectations on statewide tests.

The size of the incentives varies. A teacher who holds a national license would receive a 9 percent pay increase. For a starting teacher earning the district's base pay of $32,971, that translates to $2,967 over a year. A teacher who also taught at a "hard to serve" school would get an additional 3 percent increase, or $989.

But the plan's most controversial aspect links teacher pay to student performance. Teachers whose students beat expectations on the Colorado Student Achievement Test will also receive a 3 percent pay increase. They are eligible for another 1 percent increase - $330 a year - for meeting agreed-upon "student growth" objectives.

The district's 4,500 current teachers would have the option to stay under the old pay scale or join the new plan, known as ProComp, but all teachers hired after 2006 would be paid under the new plan - if, that is, the proposal passes the next hurdle: voters.

The package would be financed by an increase in property taxes to raise $25 million. The increase would cost the average homeowner about $61 a year, says Peggy Gonder, a spokeswoman for the task force that developed the plan. It will be put to voters in November 2005 - with enthusiastic support from Denver's mayor, its school board, and the teachers' union.

But this unanimity was a long time coming.

"Five years ago, the Board of Education wanted to move to compensation based on student achievement, and the union said no," says Becky Wissink, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, who bucked the national union to support the plan.

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