Contributor

John Campbell

John Campbell (R-Irvine) is a California State Senator representing the 35th District in Orange County. He represents the cities of Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Seal Beach and Cypress. He can be reached through his Senate website and through the website for his California Senate campaign. [go to Campbell index]

Capitalism Works
California needs performance pay for teachers. ...
[John Campbell] 4/1/05

When Gov. Schwarzenegger proposed paying good teachers more money and “expelling” bad ones, it was a long overdue bit of common sense. Under the current system of pay that is required in all public schools in California, a teacher becomes tenured on the first day of his or her 3rd year of teaching. After that point, their pay increases are determined entirely by seniority or the number of years they teach. And, because of the tenure, they basically cannot be fired for anything short of a felony. Even in that case, it becomes an excessively expensive and time-consuming legal process that forces schools to keep bad teachers. And if they actually can fire a tenured teacher, it is likely to result in the teacher receiving a large financial payout, whether or not the crime was perpetrated against children.

Such a system is designed to protect the worst of the profession and consequently it provides no rewards to the best. Changing it is so obviously the right thing to do.

I have received two types of feedback from teachers regarding the governor’s proposal. One has been private support from teachers who are afraid to support the program publicly because of fear of retribution from the teachers union. You see, it is not legal to punish a teacher for incompetence, but it is perfectly fine for the union to punish them for daring to express an opinion that differs from that of the union bosses.

The other feedback has been from teachers who oppose the governor’s reform for fear that they will be incorrectly judged by administrators or a statewide testing system.

Performance pay is not exactly a new or untried concept. A performance-based system is the way almost all of the rest of the free world is compensated. The best writers for this magazine will be paid more or promoted. The worst will be fired. I’m sure any of you reading this are trying hard to show your boss that you deserve a raise or a promotion. Even universities, both public and private, are now competing for professors by paying the best ones more to attract them to their campus. Performance pay exists in all forms of education except K-12 public schools ú where our children need us most.

Simply put, performance pay is capitalism. And capitalism works. Everyone competes in a free marketplace and the best performance yields the best remuneration. Competition improves performance for all.

The current public schoolteacher pay system is socialism. Everyone gets the same regardless of their performance, skill or effort. The worst cannot be fired and the best cannot be rewarded. That is, by definition, socialism. Socialism has proven time and time again around the world that it does not work.

And it doesn’t work in California’s public schools, either. I am one of a small percentage of state legislators whose kids are in public schools. In fact, both of my two children will have spent their entire K-12 education in the Irvine Unified School District. In my experience, there are great teachers, average teachers and even a few not-so-good teachers. And everyone knows which is which. The parents know the great teachers. So do the administrators, other teachers and even the kids. I’m sure any of you reading this can think back to your elementary or high school days and remember the great teachers who taught you the most, and the ones who were simply collecting a paycheck and taught you little.

So why all the vehement opposition to capitalism from the teachers union bosses and their minions? Because the union draws its power from convincing its members that their prosperity is dependent on the union, rather than on their own performance. They want teachers to owe the union for their job and pay, rather than parents or administrators or their own talent and hard work. It is maddening because the union portrays itself as having the interest of educating kids at heart, while their very mission and their actions are contradictory. They want their dues to increase. That’s all.

So, is performance pay the panacea for a public education system in trouble? No. But neither is money, although the “educrats” (that is short for education bureaucrats) would like you to think so. The reality is that most of the best performing schools, both in the state and in the nation, are the ones with the least funding, not the most. When was the last time you asked someone why a school was so good and they responded “because we have more money?” The answer is often involved parents or great teachers or creative principals. But it is never simply more money.

Performance-based pay is one in a tapestry of solutions for schools along with more freedom, fewer mandates, more charter schools and fewer categorical programs. In the meantime, in order to attract and reward the best teachers, and to protect our children, we must provide performance pay now. We should all fear poor school systems more than we fear a vindictive union. CRO

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