Goals and Activities
As the Joint Task Force on Teacher Compensation began initial work on the historic ProComp salary system, members set up certain criteria that they wanted their work to meet. They also set up several committees designed to determine what should go into the various components of a comprehensive compensation system for teachers.
Overall Goals for a Compensation System
The Joint Task Force on Teacher Compensation established 4 overall goals that any new compensation system should achieve. Three of these goals related to the impact of the new compensation on the overall efforts of the district while one related to charactistics of the compensation system itself.
These goals were:
1. Motivational Goals - any compensation system should motivate teachers to achieve specified objectives by providing additional compensation for achievement of those objectives. These objectives were designed to meet goals including but not limited to:
ü setting high standards,
ü enhancing the achievement of all students,
ü closing the gap between lower performing and higher performing students,
ü performing specified additional duties (e.g., coaching, committee work, special assignments), and
ü participating in professional development.
For the system to be effective, it is necessary to define how achievement of objectives will be measured. In some cases, (such as additional duties), this will be easily measured while in other cases (such as student achievement), measurement is a significant issue in itself.
2. Career Goals - any compensation system should provide appropriate compensation to attract and retain high quality teachers in all specialties over the course of their career. These goals would include:
ü economic progression for teachers as they move through a career,
ü effective competition with other employers (including non-educational employers), and
ü reducing barriers between teaching and administrative jobs.
3. Professional Goals - any compensation system should enhance the professional standing and dignity of teachers. Risk taking in the pursuit of professional achievement should be encouraged. Compensation systems should be positive rather than punitive.
4. System Goals - any compensation system should be affordable, manageable, equitable, sustainable, comprehensive, and understandable by those who whould be part of it.
Committee Work Areas
Following its first design session, the Joint Task Force on Teacher Compensation established committees to address the components it wanted to build into a new compensation system.
Joint Task Force members served on committees that addressed the following topics:
ü Knowledge and Skills - Education and demonstrated skills that would be rewarded through increased compensation. Members: Gary Justus, Jeff Beck, Barb Nash, Diane Deschanel
ü Student Achievement - Ways to reward teachers for increases in academic growth by their students. Members: Rich Allen, Diane Waco, Brad Jupp, Lee White
ü Market Incentives - Monetary and non-monetary rewards to recruit and retain people in schools and teaching positions that are difficult to fill. Members: Gary Justus, Andre Pettigrew, Brad Jupp
ü Professional Evaluations - Determining the role of teacher evaluations for advancement in a compensation system. Members: Pete Hergenreter, Barbara Cooper, Jamie Rich
ü Specialist Compensation - Adapting the teacher compensation system so that it is appropriate for nurses, psychologists, social workers, educational audiologists, occupational and physical therapists, teacher of the hearing impaired and teachers of the vision impaired. Members: Diane Deschanel, Jeanne Lyons, Pat Lopez and Shirley Scott will assist a committee of representatives from each discipline selected collaboratively by DPS and DCTA
The design phase continued until April 2003, when the task force presented a draft of its work for discussion to Denver Public Schools, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association and the community. Discussion continuted into Fall 2003.
Then the Joint Task Force on Teacher Compensation took what it had learned from the discussion and incorporated it in a thorough revision. In February, DPS approved the ProComp agreement, and teachers passed ProComp in March 2004.