Knowledge- and Skill-Based Pay Through a Collective Bargaining Lens

A number of observers are examining the implications of new management strategies for how teachers are paid. Although the current system of teacher pay, the single-salary schedule, may not interfere with new workplace reforms, it may not complement (or enhance) them. One pay alternative is teacher knowledge- and skill-based pay. Most previous literature concerning such plans has adopted a managerial perspective, or “lens,” focusing, for example, on the organizational advantages to managers of a skilled teacher workforce. This perspective may downplay the viewpoints of alternative organizational stakeholders. This article adopts an alternative, collective bargaining lens for viewing knowledge- and skill-based plans. Discussion addresses the likely reactions of teachers to knowledge- and skill-based pay plans, collective bargaining issues that may emerge between a teachers' union and a district employer concerning such plans, and union involvement at the strategic level of decision making regarding alternative pay proposals.

Solving the Shortage of Mathematics and Science Teachers

Present shortages of mathematics and science teachers in secondary schools are not a new phenomenon. Such shortages have been present for at least 40 years, with only the magnitude of the shortages fluctuating. Nor is the cause of the shortages a new phenomenon. Just as school salary policy, with its reliance on the single salary schedule, has not provided competitive salaries for mathematics and science specialists in the past, it continues to create a shortfall in the number of qualified mathematics and science personnel willing to take teacher training and offer their services to schools. It is only by providing special increments to attract mathematics and science specialists that a long-term solution can be effected. Schools can accommodate such a change in policy through careful and systematic planning. Both the state and federal governments have roles to play in assisting schools to formulate salary policies that will attract adequate numbers of qualified teachers for all openings.