Long-stagnant teacher compensation needs to be upgraded

11-17-2011

Op-Ed By Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney/Los Angeles Times

Michael Greenstone is director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution and an economics professor at MIT. Adam Looney is policy director for the Hamilton Project and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

A good teacher can transform the lives of children. But most U.S. school districts have insufficient tools to encourage effective teaching. The country is in the midst of a 30-year period of stagnation in student achievement. One of the things that could help turn things around is a new approach to how teachers are paid, one specifically aimed at attracting the best applicants and encouraging the most effective teachers to stay. Great teachers not only transmit knowledge and passion, they also impart important attitudes about learning and teach valuable life skills that directly contribute to success later in life. For example, new evidence shows that having an above-average kindergarten teacher rather than a below-average one translates into a difference of more than $300,000 in lifetime earnings for a classroom of 20 students. (more...)

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Long-stagnant teacher compensation needs to be upgraded

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