WE GET THE TEACHERS WE PAY FOR

THIS week, as rookie pro football players are taking the field with
contracts worth millions, rookie teachers are entering the classroom with
contracts worth as little as $18,000 a year. We Americans know how to
attract top talent to the sports arena. Isn't it time we applied some of
that marketplace magic to a challenge that really matters: recruiting top
quality teachers?

No, I'm not advocating seven-figure salaries for teachers. But something is
seriously askew when, for example, first-year teachers in California are
paid thousands of dollars less than novice prison guards.

Fortunately, most prospective teachers are interested in doing good, not
doing well. What's more, idealistic young people count on the ``psychic
rewards'' of teaching to compensate for the low pay.

But even if new teachers are willing to rationalize their substandard
salaries, the truth is that low teacher pay comes at a very high cost.

New teachers find that ``psychic rewards'' are often fleeting -- and in any
case are not legal tender. Not surprisingly, 20 percent of new public
school teachers leave the classroom by the end of their first year. Almost
half leave within five years.

And what about all the talented, highly educated young people who size up
teacher salaries and say, ``Are you kidding?'' The problem of attracting --
and retaining -- qualified prospects is especially acute in math and
science, where newly minted graduates can easily command two to three times
the salary of a starting teacher. Because low salaries fail to lure enough
qualified teachers, 28 percent of high school math teachers and 55 percent
of high school physics teachers have neither a major nor a minor in their
subjects.

Or consider the uproar this summer in Massachusetts, where 59 percent of
prospective public school teachers flunked a controversial entry-level
exam. John Silber, chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education, led
the chorus of state officials who claimed to be ``shocked, shocked'' by the
failure rate. This is the same John Silber who said recently, ``I don't see
why a garbage collector shouldn't be paid more than a teacher. It's a very
unattractive job, whereas teaching is very attractive.''

Meanwhile, the July 27 issue of Forbes wins the dunce cap for its article
arguing that teacher salaries are too high. Bear in mind, this is the same
Forbes that annually lists and lionizes the world's 200 richest people
(none worth less than $1.5 billion). And the larger irony is that Forbes --
which defends extravagant corporate salaries as necessary to attract top
talent -- fails to see the obvious: to attract more of the best into
teaching, public schools need salaries that are literally ``attractive.''

Are high-quality teachers worth the extra dollars? For the answer, think of
the impact that teachers had on your own life. Or consider the
just-released Education Trust report spotlighting the dramatic difference
that effective teachers can make. The study found that in Texas, for
example, teacher quality -- ``measured by education, experience and test
scores on initial licensing exams'' -- accounted for 43 percent of the
variance in student achievement.

Fortunately, many elected officials are starting to ``get it.'' In
Maryland, the state school superintendent recently proposed offering tax
credits to new teachers. For more than a decade, progressive governors
across the South have aggressively raised teacher salaries.

It is time to get serious about school quality -- beginning with the
guarantee of a qualified teacher in every classroom. To that end, I support
the testing of new teachers, and I'd require all future high-school
teachers to have a college major in the subjects they teach. But let's not
delude ourselves. In teaching as in any profession, it is hypocritical --
and futile -- to demand top quality unless we are willing to pay for it.

Bob Chase is president of the National Education Association.

1997 - 1998 Mercury Center.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan