Secretary's Column
By Dr. Rick Melmer
Department of Education

Goodbye salary schedules?

In my position as secretary of education, I have the opportunity to travel across the country and listen to speakers at various national workshops. As I attend these workshops, I am able to pick up certain themes or trends that seem to be consistent nationwide. In this article, I will address one particular trend: the movement regarding compensation for classroom teachers.

It appears clear that the traditional teacher salary schedule is slowly moving out of many education organizations across this country. Districts and states are moving away from the standard salary schedule, which compensates teachers based on years of service and educational attainment, and have moved into ranges of salaries that provide more flexibility for administrators to compensate teachers as needed.

It is true that many districts across South Dakota already have abandoned their salary schedule in favor of hiring ranges and more flexibility in terms of paying entry-level teachers upon hiring.  The national trend certainly embraces this philosophy but takes it a step further. The national trend is clearly in the direction of differential pay for teachers. This involves the ability to pay teachers based on their perceived contribution to the district. The assessment is made by building administrators, a committee of peers or state officials.

Why is this movement taking place? It is taking place for a variety of reasons, including:

1.                  Recruitment is becoming increasingly difficult in certain geographical areas. It is also difficult to recruit teachers in certain subject or content areas, especially at the secondary level.

2.                  Districts are finding it more difficult to keep talented people due to opportunities that may exist in the private sector.

3.                  Education can’t count on hiring females any longer. Fortunately, young women have an opportunity to do anything that they choose to do. In the past, their choices were limited, and education was one of these limited options.

4.                  Contagious behavior. Clearly, in education, if a particular trend is working in one location, it is often times replicated in other locations. More differential pay systems are popping up all over the country, and we will likely see some of those systems land in South Dakota.

During the 2006 legislative session, the Department of Education promoted the Teacher Compensation Assistance Program. This program was a matching program that provided school districts with an opportunity to compensate teachers at higher levels based on three different options. We still believe that the Teacher Compensation Assistance Program, or TCAP, has merit, and we hope that differential pay for teachers can continue to be a discussion point in future legislative sessions.