Dive Brief:
- Thus far, the Every Student Succeeds Act's negotiated rulemaking sessions haven't delved into the issue of teacher pay equity, an issue that could potentially help districts prove that their use of Title 1 funding is supplementary, not supplanting state and local funding.
- Overall, equity in teacher pay is a touchy subject, and its role in assessing if Title 1 spending is comparable between low- and high-poverty schools is also problematic and controversial, which could be why the ESSA rulemakers have yet to touch the issue.
- To show whether they're Title I compliant, some districts use examples of how low-and high-performing schools are given comparable staffing levels that follow identical or very similar salary schedules — but critics say this is erroneous and ignores whether educators are being paid similarly across high- and low-poverty schools.
Dive Insight:
The new federal guidelines on ESSA's implementation were released in December and aimed at smoothing the transition to the new law. Under ESSA, portability has been contentious, and the 1,000+ page law returns a significant amount of control back to the states. Though teacher compensation equity hasn't been discussed thus far, negotiations have already tackled other difficult topics like English Language Learning. One of the priorities of the session was ensuring the validity and reliability of ELL tests, which has been an ongoing difficulty in the past.
ESSA critics have called into question the law's teacher quality provisions and pay-for-access ed funding initiatives. But since the rule-making negotiations are still underway, it's too soon for district officials to start making changes or trying to predict what will be handed down. Increases in teacher pay have been linked to merit in some districts, like Richmond, VA, where an $8.4 million proposal by Superintendent Dr. Dana Bedden seeks to restructure compensation for teachers to provide better pay. That proposal is aimed at attempting to increase teacher retention and improve education quality in the area.
