Career ladders and master teachers

An important issue is the “careerless” nature of teaching. “Careerless” in this case means the lack of advancement possibilities for classroom teachers. Other careers usually hold out the hope of advancement within the organization or through individual entrepreneurial skills. An office worker can move through the hierarchy of the organization, and a professional can attempt to increase income through his or her own ability.

Traditionally, when teachers entered the classroom there was no possibility of advancement except to leave the classroom and be trained as an administrator—or to get out of the education profession completely. Most teachers could not increase their income by superior teaching or service. In fact, merit pay is often opposed by teachers because of its potential abuse. Career ladders and master-teacher plans attempt to correct the problem of the careerless nature of teaching and the lack of rewards for superior teaching by providing different career levels. One way of understanding this idea is to compare it to university teaching. Traditionally, universities hire new faculty members as assistant professors. After a period of five to seven years the faculty member applies for tenure and a position as an associate professor. Once promoted to associate professor, the faculty member might be promoted to professor if he or she demonstrates superior qualities in teaching or scholarship. Each advancement in rank provides increased recognition and rewards.

The same basic idea underlies proposals for career ladders and master-teacher plans. A teacher might be hired as an apprentice teacher and after a number of years of receiving satisfactory evaluations be promoted to the rank of regular teacher and receive tenure. Later, if the teacher if considered superior, that teacher might be promoted to master teacher. It is important to understand that this is only a simple example. Some proposals are more complex and involve added duties for the master teacher.

In addition to overcoming the problem of the careerless nature of teaching, master-teacher and career-ladder proposals are supposed to solve the problems inherent in traditional methods of compensating teachers. The traditional salary schedule for teachers allows for increases in pay with each year of service and for added academic degrees from universities. Under a traditional pay plan all beginning certified teachers with a bachelor’s degree receive the same base salary. For each year of service after the first year, salaries increase by a fixed percentage. Under this method of payment a teacher receives an automatic salary increase with each year of service. In addition, a teacher can increase his or her salary by earning more college credits. Usually, the earning of a master’s degree results in an increase in salary in addition to the automatic yearly increase. Also, there are usually increases for earning an additional fifteen hours beyond the master’s degree and for earning a doctoral degree.

One of the major complaints about the traditional method of compensation is that it is not based on the ability of teachers to teach. This became a heated issue in the early 1980s when everyone admitted that teachers were underpaid but many felt that salaries should be increased only for superior teachers. This is the reason for proposals for career ladders and master teachers. These plans are considered as replacements for the traditional salary schedule.

Another plan for providing additional compensation without changing the traditional salary schedule is that of merit pay. With merit pay, superior teachers would be identified and would receive an additional salary increase over their automatic yearly increase in salary. But merit-pay plans have been bitterly resisted by teachers because of the problem of setting criteria for superior teaching. This is also an issue with career ladders and master-teacher proposals. Teachers fear that school administrators will use merit pay to reward only personal favorites and those who are compliant with administrative orders. There is also the real difficulty of defining and evaluating superior teaching.

Most proposals for career ladders include extra duties for teachers, including supervising other teachers during their probationary years and planning curriculum. Traditionally, teachers have been confined to classrooms, extracurricular activities, policing chores, and committees established by the school principal. Supervision of new teachers introduces a role traditionally assumed by the administration. It adds an administrative function to the role of teaching. Participation in planning curriculum adds another dimension to the role of teaching.

Adding responsibilities and extending the months of the teaching contract are criticized as not providing an actual increase in compensation but only additional pay for additional work. It would, however, be possible to have the category of master teacher include additional compensation without adding extra work. In the university system, promotion from assistant to associate or full professor does not entail any additional responsibilities. Similar criticisms can be made of the extended contract year. Why not just increase salaries without requiring additional months of work?

How the issues of compensation and extra duties are distributed is exemplified by the career ladder introduced in Tennessee in 1984. Under the original plan, the Tennessee legislature established five levels in the career ladder, with additional compensation ranging from $500 to $7,000 per year. The first level is for new teachers on probationary status who receive state certification after receiving positive evaluations. Teachers who receive certification become apprentice teachers for three years and receive a yearly supplement of $500. Apprentice teachers are evaluated each year and by the third year must receive tenure and be promoted to Career Level One teachers or lose their jobs. Career Level One teachers are certified at this level for five years and receive an annual supplement of $1,000. Teachers at this career level assume the additional duties of supervising student teachers and probationary teachers.

Under this plan a teacher might remain at Career Level One for his or her entire teaching career. Promotion to Career Level Two requires evaluation by the state, using Career Level Three teachers from outside the district of the teacher being evaluated. If the teacher is promoted to Level Two, he or she receives an annual pay supplement of $2,000 for a 10-month contract and $4,000 for an 11-month contract. Career Level Two teachers are given the additional responsibilities of working with remedial and gifted students, along with supervising apprentice teachers. The evaluation procedure for Level Three is similar to that of Level Two. Level Three teachers receive an additional $3,000 for a 10-month contract, $5,000 for an 11-month contract, and $7,000 for a 12-month contract. In addition to the duties added for Level Two teachers, Level Three teachers also conduct evaluations of teachers who are on other career levels.

An important issue in career ladders is teacher participation in evaluation of other teachers. Traditionally, evaluation of teachers has been conducted by school administrators. Teachers complained for years about this system and they argued that if teachers are truly professionals, they should be evaluated by their peers. The Tennessee legislation incorporates this idea by using Level Three teachers for evaluation. Also, most master-teacher proposals give senior teachers the added duty of participating in teacher evaluations.

The issue of method of evaluation is more complex. The debate on this issue ranges across several dimensions. First is the problem of whether teachers should be evaluated on the basis of their performance in the class- room or the performance of their students. The difficulty of using student performance is the range of abilities existing among students and between classes of students. Some students, because of a variety of factors, including family background and intelligence, might learn faster than other students. It would be unfair to evaluate a teacher of students with rapid learning abilities against a teacher of students with slow learning abilities. Also, most evaluations of students are conducted by using standardized tests. Systems using student performance as a means of teacher evaluation run the danger of teachers directing their efforts mainly toward preparing students to do well on performance tests.

If teacher performance becomes the basis for evaluation, then there will be a set of problems arising from the need to define good teaching. Historically, there has been an almost continuous debate dating from the nineteenth century over whether teaching is an art or a science. Obviously one’s position on this issue would be reflected in the teaching qualities one would consider in evaluation. In recent years there has been a debate between those who believe that good teaching is composed of measurable competencies, and those who believe that good teaching is a product of experience that is displayed in reaction to a variety of classroom situations.

Salaries are the central and continuing issues regarding career ladders. Career ladders can be used to spend less money on teachers’ salaries by only rewarding those in the upper rungs. Teachers’ organizations are very aware of this possibility. Only by providing adequate compensation to all teachers will state and local school systems be able to convince teachers to support the concept of career ladders.

Career ladders represent one aspect of the current attempt to improve the profession of teaching. Another idea for increasing the status of teaching is national certification. And, like career-ladder plans, national certification has been attacked by teachers’ organizations.

National Certification

The current efforts to establish national certification of teachers began in 1986 when the Task Force on Teaching as a Profession, working under the auspices of the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, proposed changing the basic structure of the teaching profession. Its recommendations included the formation of a national certification board, which was then established in 1987 as the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

The justification for national certification included economic need and a shortage of qualified teachers. The task force report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, is premised on the belief that America can no longer compete in mass-production goods in world markets. Consequently, the report argues, the nation must shift its economy to emphasize knowledge-based industries. In this context, the schools must stop teaching repetitive skills needed in mass production and start teaching all students higher order thinking. According to the report, the old educational requirements needed for a mass-production economy could be packaged in texts, and teachers could be trained to use those texts. A knowledge-based economy, according to the report, requires students who are intellectually prepared to deal with a non-routine world and unexpected events. The report argues that the training of students in higher order skills requires abandoning traditional textbook teaching and developing new teaching strategies. These new teaching strategies require a teacher who no longer uses routine teaching methods, but constantly adapts to different learning situations. That is why, at least in the eyes of the Carnegie Forum, the key to changing the schools to meet the requirements of a knowledge-based economy is the reform of the profession of teaching.

The report describes the teacher needed for a knowledge-based economy as one who is highly creative and has the ability to constantly learn as new knowledge becomes available. In the words of the report, these new teachers “must think for themselves if they are to help others think for themselves, be able to act independently and collaborate with others, and render critical judgement. They must be people whose knowledge is wide-ranging and whose understanding runs deep”.

The Carnegie Forum believes the teacher shortage provides an ideal opportunity to change the profession of teaching and, as a result, adapt the schools to the requirements of a knowledge-based economy. The report’s figures show that in 1985 the demand for teachers was roughly equal to the supply of teachers. In the 1990s, there was an increasing demand and a decreasing supply.

It is important to understand the reasons for this projected shortage of teachers because it provides insight into the challenging demographic patterns in teaching. One reason for the projected increase demand for teachers is increasing teacher retirements. When the baby boom ended in the 1970s and classrooms were closed because of decreasing student enrollments, school systems stopped hiring many new teachers and fired many young teachers. Consequently, the average age of teachers increased. Adding to the problem of teacher retirements is an increase in school populations as the children of baby boom parents enter school.

While the teacher shortage offers the opportunity for changing the profession by hiring large numbers of new teachers, there is the potential for a decrease in the academic qualifications of teachers. One hope for improving the quality and the status of the profession is, according to the Carnegie Forum, national certification. To achieve this goal, the Forum organized in 1987 the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards consisting of sixty-four members, the majority of whom are teachers. The goal is to create a national teaching certificate that would be in addition to the current licensing of teachers by individual states.

Under the plan, states would continue to issue licenses to ensure that prospective teachers meet the minimum standards established by state laws, and to signify that the holder is not a danger to public safety and the safety of a client. The national certificate would indicate that the holder meets the standards established by the profession itself. The purpose of a national certification board, then, is to establish standards for the profession of teaching and to certify that individuals meet these standards.

One of the first tasks of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is the creation of a test that would qualify candidates for the national certificate. In addition, the board must establish prerequisites for certification. This is the issue that has generated the greatest controversy.

In the 1993-1994 school year, the National Board for Professional Teach­ing Standards conducted assessments for certification of teachers of English-language arts to children in early adolescence. This initial assessment was part of a broader plan to field test assessments in a network of schools and districts in nineteen states. As originally planned, this initial assessment includes a written test of content knowledge, a three-part portfolio exercise, and exercises given at an assessment center. The portfolio exercises include a planning and teaching segment where the teacher is asked to keep over a three-week period videotapes, student work, classroom handouts, and other material. This segment of the portfolio is used to determine a teacher’s ability to plan and conduct teaching sessions. For the second part of the portfolio, student learning, the teacher keeps folders tracking the learning of two students. And the last segment of the portfolio is a videotape of the teacher and students engaged in a discussion of a piece of literature.

One of the important questions regarding this assessment is who should do the judging. At the summer 1992 meeting of the Board it was decided that only classroom teachers would be allowed to do the assessing. This is an important advance in the professionalization of education. Professionalism is often defined in terms of its members controlling access to the profession. Teacher control combined with national certification, it is hoped, will enhance the profession of teaching in the public’s eyes.

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