Pawlenty gives ABCs of teachers’ pay plan

08/18/2005

Patricia Lopez,
Star Tribune
August 18, 2005

Skeptical but interested, educators packed a ballroom at the Radisson Riverfront in St. Paul on Wednesday to listen to Gov. Tim Pawlenty make his pitch for Q-Comp, a plan that could begin to change the way schools do business.

Passed in the last legislative session, Q-Comp, or Quality Compensation, would modify the system of pay based on seniority and education level. Instead, teachers’ pay raises would be paid based in part on their performance.

But, Pawlenty said, Q-Comp is more than that.

A document developed by the state Education Department outlines a plan that would revamp the system itself, with master teachers coaching resident teachers, lead teachers paid on a par with school principals and days that allow for greater collaboration.

All of it, Pawlenty said, is geared toward developing a system that teaches smarter and produces children who learn better. The pay, he said, provides the incentives for it all.

Sounding a conciliatory note after a rocky legislative session that included the first real funding increase for schools in years, Pawlenty said he doesn’t want Q-Comp to come from the top.

“This doesn’t work if it isn’t a bottom-up process,” he told the crowd. “If we try to visit this upon you, it will never work. We have a concept I think is worth trying. Let’s try this. There is not a lot of downside. It’s voluntary.”

So far, only the Hopkins School District has applied for Q-Comp, which would provide an additional $260 of state funding for every student in the district. That money—$86 million statewide—could be applied to teachers’ salaries, performance awards, extra training or the hiring of master teachers or specialists.

To qualify, unions and administrators would have to agree to scrap the traditional model that pays strictly on seniority and additional education for one in which teacher evaluations and gains in student achievement account for 60 percent of pay raises.

The new models would be designed locally, and teachers could not be financially penalized for failing to meet the new standards.

Brad Johnson, the new superintendent at Hermantown, said he considered Q-Comp “a good idea,” worth bringing back to his teaching staff of about 150.

“We’ll explore it,” he said. “We’re definitely looking into it very hard. Frankly, financing is so tight, we have to. We need the money.”

Teachers’ raises, Johnson said, “don’t even cover the increase in their health care costs. We have to do something.”