Federal

Duncan Presses NEA on Merit Pay, Tenure

By Stephen Sawchuk — July 02, 2009 | Corrected: February 22, 2019 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Corrected: A previous version of this story misstated the NEA’s policy on extra pay for teachers in hard-to-staff schools. The union allows it.

Teachers’ unions must be willing to reconsider seniority provisions, rework tenure provisions, and work with districts to create fair ways of incorporating student-achievement growth in teacher evaluation and compensation, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today.

Although the Obama administration has put an emphasis on both performance pay and evaluation in recent months, Mr. Duncan’s speech to members of the National Education Association comes as the clearest sign yet that the U.S. Department of Education will likely put federal funding behind initiatives that incorporate student data as one of several measures of teacher performance.

Speaking before 6,500 officials and local delegates of the NEA, who are meeting here for the union’s annual Representative Assembly, Mr. Duncan underscored compensation, evaluation, and tenure reform as crucial to improving the quality of the education workforce.

“I believe that teacher unions are at a crossroads. These policies were created over the past century to protect the rights of teachers, but they have produced an industrial, factory model of education that treats all teachers like interchangeable widgets,” Mr. Duncan said. “When inflexible seniority and rigid tenure rules that we designed put adults ahead of children, then we are not only putting kids at risk, we’re putting the entire education system at risk. We’re inviting the attack of parents and the public, and that is not good for any of us.”

Delegates applauded Mr. Duncan’s calls for continued federal funding for education, better training for administrators, and for improved teacher-mentoring experiences. But in an indication of the challenges that the federal government will face as it pushes for reforms to compensation and evaluation, they booed and hissed through those parts of Mr. Duncan’s address.

The speech is the fourth Mr. Duncan has given on the core principles in the education-stimulus bill. Much of it echoed President Obama’s rhetoric on teacher professionalism from the campaign trail and from his November address on education.

Like the president, Mr. Duncan sought to reassure teachers that he would seek reforms to the teaching profession in collaboration with them. Nevertheless, the speech underscores that the Obama administration is pushing hard on areas that have long been sensitive for teachers’ unions, a shift for the Democratic party that Mr. Duncan seemed to acknowledge.

“You can boo, but just don’t throw any shoes, please,” Mr. Duncan quipped midway through his address.

Performance Pay a Focus

The issue of performance-based pay and evaluation continues to concern the nation’s largest teachers union. During a town-hall style question-and-answer period, a number of delegates questioned Mr. Duncan on those elements.

“I’m encouraged to hear you say that evaluation should never be based entirely on test scores…[but] in too many cases, our state boards of education, our local boards of education are not getting that message,” said one delegate.

Others were more frank about their dislike for performance-based pay.

“Quite frankly, merit pay is union-busting,” said another delegate, to applause from her peers.

Officially, NEA policy allows for pay bonuses for teachers who hold advanced certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, for those who take on additional responsibilities such as mentoring less experienced teachers, and for teachers serving in hard-to-staff schools. It does not endorse higher salaries for math and science teachers or for performance-based pay. And it eschews the use of test scores in pay and evaluation decisions.

While praising the national board program, Mr. Duncan said unions must work to consider other types of compensation reform.

“School systems pay teachers billions of dollars more each year for earning credentials that do very little to improve the quality of teaching,” he said. “At the same time, many schools give nothing at all to the teachers who go the extra mile and make all the difference in students’ lives. Excellence matters, and we should honor it—fairly, transparently, and on terms teachers can embrace.”

Through the economic-stimulus legislation, the Obama administration put an additional $200 million into the Teacher Incentive Fund, which requires grantees to use “objective measures” of student performance in awarding teacher-pay bonuses. So far, 34 districts, states, and nonprofit organizations have received TIF grants.

President Obama proposed investing an additional $487.3 million in the FY 2010 budget cycle. But that plan could face pushback from key Democratic senators, who expressed skepticism about the program in a recent education subcommittee meeting.

Mr. Duncan did not elaborate on what requirements districts and states will have to address to be eligible to compete for the funds. Many potentially controversial questions remain, such as whether the districts receiving the grants would have to bargain the pay programs collectively with their local unions.

NEA officials said earlier this year that they would prefer the Obama administration increase funding for the Title II teacher-quality state grants rather than put additional funds into TIF. That program provides funds to every state and can be spent on initiatives such as class-size reduction or professional development, in comparison to the narrowly defined and discretionary TIF program.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Reading & Literacy Webinar
The Future of the Science of Reading
Join us for a discussion on the future of the Science of Reading and how to support every student’s path to literacy.
Content provided by HMH
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
College & Workforce Readiness Webinar
From Classrooms to Careers: How Schools and Districts Can Prepare Students for a Changing Workforce
Real careers start in school. Learn how Alton High built student-centered, job-aligned pathways.
Content provided by TNTP
Mathematics K-12 Essentials Forum Helping Students Succeed in Math

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Trump Admin. Says Undocumented Students Can't Attend Head Start, Early College
The administration issued notices saying undocumented immigrants don't qualify for Head Start and some Education Department programs.
7 min read
Children play during aftercare for the Head Start program at Easterseals South Florida, an organization that gets about a third of its funding from the federal government, on Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami.
Children play during aftercare for the Head Start program at Easterseals South Florida, an organization that gets about a third of its funding from the federal government, on Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami. The Trump administration said Thursday that undocumented children are ineligible for Head Start and a number of other federally funded programs that the administration is classifying as similar to welfare benefits.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Federal How Medicaid, SNAP Changes in Trump's Big Budget Bill Could Affect Schools
The bill will stress a major funding stream schools rely on, leading to ripple effects that make it harder for schools to offer free meals.
6 min read
President Donald Trump signs his signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts at the White House on July 4, 2025, in Washington.
President Donald Trump signs his signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts at the White House on July 4, 2025, in Washington. The bill cuts federal spending for Medicaid and food stamps—cuts that stand to affect students and trickle down to schools.
Evan Vucci/AP
Federal Opinion A D.C. Insider Explains What’s Changed in Education Policy
The biggest thing that people don’t understand about federal education policy? How much the details really matter.
7 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week
Federal What Superintendents Think About a Steady Clip of Federal K-12 Changes
A state superintendent and two district leaders shared their thoughts on the latest changes coming from Washington.
4 min read
From left, Quentin J. Lee, superintendent of Talladega City Schools, Keith Konyk, superintendent of Elizabeth Forward School District, and Eric Mackey, Alabama's state superintendent of education, discuss the latest K-12 policy changes at the ISTELive 25 + ASCD Annual Conference 25 on July 2, 2025.
From left, Quentin J. Lee, superintendent of Talladega City Schools in Alabama; Keith Konyk, superintendent of Elizabeth Forward School District in Pennsylvania; and Eric Mackey, Alabama's state superintendent of education, discuss the latest K-12 policy changes at the ISTELive 25 + ASCD Annual Conference 25 on July 2, 2025.
Kaylee Domzalski/Education Week