The Inaugural National Team

In our inaugural TeacherSolutions project, 18 of the nation’s best teachers focused their attention on professional compensation, researching past efforts to create alternative pay models, and crafting new and different solutions based on their understanding of the professional work of teachers. In their final report, Performance-Pay for Teachers: Designing a System that Students Deserve, the TeacherSolutions team defined both why and how teachers need to be paid more when they:

• Help students learn more;
• Develop and use new knowledge and skills;
• Fulfill special needs in the local labor market; and
• Provide school and community leadership for student success.

The following highly accomplished teachers comprised the inaugural TeacherSolutions team:

• Sarah Applegate, Lacey, WA
• Susan Bischoff, Manatee County, FL
• Anthony Cody, Oakland, CA
• Bill Ferriter, Wake County, NC
• Nancy Flanagan, Hartland, MI
• Theresa Killingsworth, Phoenix, AZ
• Becky Malone, Chattanooga, TN
• Valdine McLean, Pershing County, NV
• Renee Moore, Shelby, MS
• Ford Morishita, Portland, OR
• Jennifer Morrison, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC
• Carole Moyer, Columbus, OH
• Lori Nazareno, Denver, CO
• Marsha Ratzel, Blue Valley, KS
• Betsy Rogers, Birmingham, AL
• Lisa Suarez-Caraballo, Cleveland, OH
• Amy Treadwell, Chicago, IL
• Maria Uribe, Denver, CO

Read more about the TeacherSolutions team, including their biographies and their full report here.

Local Efforts

A central tenet of the approach recommended by the national TeacherSolutions team is that a viable performance-pay framework must be flexible enough to allow districts and states to tailor incentives that advance their specific student-learning goals — with the expectation that teachers will be full partners in the design. Support from the Joyce, Ewing Marion Kauffman, and Stuart Foundations has given CTQ increasing opportunities to develop and disseminate the TeacherSolutions report and its unique professional compensation ideas across the nation, including the school districts of Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, as well as the states of California and Kansas.

For example, with support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, CTQ began working in summer 2007 with a small cadre of accomplished teacher leaders from across Kansas to develop a localized vision for strategic compensation. CTQ helped lay the groundwork for deeper conversations among some of the state’s most accomplished teachers around strategic compensation at both the state and local levels. The group’s electronic final report, which includes podcasts from the TLN-Kansas team members, encourages all education stakeholders to play a role in addressing these critical issues.
 

The following teachers made up th core planning team for TLN-Kansas:

• Andrew Davis, Wichita
• Ronda Hassig, Blue Valley
• Jarius Jones, Kansas City
• DeAnn Nelson, Wichita
• Sam Rabiola, Lawrence
• Marsha Ratzel, Blue Valley