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Signs of promise with ProComp

Saturday, September 29 at 12:00 AM

By Phil Gonring and Paul Teske

Good schools are about good teaching. After all, whether it be a successful charter school like West Denver Prep, a high-performing private school like Arrupe Jesuit High or a promising traditional public school like Bruce Randolph, all schools need teachers who produce results.

Parents have always known that a smart, well-trained, well-supported, caring teacher can do remarkable things for children. And our state must produce or find thousands of these talented teachers annually — no easy task, given constant turnover in the profession and the fact that it must compete with more lucrative careers that offer better working conditions.

So how do we inspire a generation of talented people to become teachers and stay in education, at least for a good portion of their careers? How do schools compete with other professions for the best available talent when they are asking their employees to work in 80-year-old buildings with inadequate resources? How do they compete with businesses that do not require their employees to serve 150 clients a day, as do many of our high school teachers? And even if we can get teachers to stay awhile, how do we intervene against their natural inclination to move from high- to low-poverty schools where kids are much easier to teach?

There is no silver bullet. But one promising solution that has captured national attention is teacher compensation reform. For a good example, we need look no further than our own backyard for the nation’s boldest teacher pay experiment, ProComp, a system under which Denver teachers receive salary increases by raising student achievement, acquiring and demonstrating relevant knowledge and skill, teaching in hard-to-staff schools and positions, and achieving satisfactory evaluations.

While it is still too early to assess ProComp’s success, early signs are promising. The number of teachers who applied to teach in Denver’s toughest schools increased substantially this past year.

Teachers enrolled in ProComp and producing results are making more money than they would under the old system. Someday soon, Denver will have its first $100,000-a-year teacher. Wages like this carry the promise that if teachers are successful, they will make a salary that is commensurate to the contribution they make to America. ProComp offers a simple compact with the next generation of America’s teachers: We will pay you well if you come to Denver and produce results for children.

ProComp is not perfect. Fortunately, the union and school district’s agreement calls for teachers and administrators to work together as early as this fall to improve the remarkable system they developed — based on what ongoing evaluation tells them is and is not working. Their efforts, which should include a commitment to the civil discourse that produced ProComp, will go a long way toward ensuring that Denver Public Schools becomes the place to teach for the next generation of teachers.

Phil Gonring and Paul Teske are co-authors, along with Brad Jupp, of the newly released book Pay-for-Performance Teacher Compensation: An Inside View of Denver’s ProComp Plan (Harvard Education Press). Gonring is a senior program officer at Rose Community Foundation and Teske is a professor at the University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Center’s School of Public Affairs.

READER COMMENTS

Wow, teachers support a plan where they are not held accountable, cannot be docked pay and only can receive raises. Wow, who wouldn't support that? oh, maybe the people paying for it.

Until Teachers are treated like other employees and not a protected class, this should be taken off the table immediately.

Posted by Dravur on October 10, 2007 10:23 AM

I am a teacher. Made my goals this year and received a grand total of $58 a paycheck. It will be a very, very long time before I see $100,000.

Posted by susan smythe on October 7, 2007 12:31 AM

Wow, time for the chest waders.... Dealing with 150 clients a day? Happens in retail all the time. and they dont get them 20 at a time for a single session. $100k teachers? and summers off? where do I sign up?

Give the parents the choice to have their kids educated where they want. Give them a voucher and set them loose. The market will work in education. More money at the old system won't.

Posted by Dravur on October 5, 2007 10:12 AM

If DPS is so cutting edge and great and the results are so wonderful, why are so many children literally fleeing the school district?

Be honest, is DPS flooded with applications of new teachers who are just dying to teach in DPS thanks to Procomp?

ProComp is a silly program that will eventually go the way of other older silly programs.

No other school district is closing schools like DPS is!

Posted by Constance on October 2, 2007 12:55 PM

Good schools are about good involved parents!

Posted by brain on September 29, 2007 09:47 PM