BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – A new national report highlights Alabama as the only state offering enough additional pay to recruit teachers both into hard-to-staff subjects and into hard-to-staff schools.
The National Council on Teacher Quality pointed to Alabama’s TEAMS program, which pays qualifying middle- and high-school math and science teachers on a higher salary schedule. TEAMS teachers who work in schools the state identifies as hard to staff can receive another $5,000 a year.
NCTQ President Heather Peske said the TEAMS program is an example of how states can use teacher pay to do more than simply raise salaries across the board.
“One of the best ways” to make sure students have effective teachers, Peske said, “is to use compensation as a means of attracting and retaining great teachers.”
With budgets tighter, she said, states should be looking closely at whether the money they already spend on teacher compensation is helping them keep teachers and improve student outcomes.
In Alabama, State Superintendent Eric Mackey said TEAMS has made a significant difference in the supply of math and science teachers.
“It absolutely proves the principle of market economics,” Mackey said. “You can use money to move the market when you decide what your priorities are.”
Alabama still has schools that struggle to find enough math and science teachers, Mackey said. But for the first time this year, he said some superintendents are calling to say they have more qualified math and science teachers seeking TEAMS contracts than they need for existing classes.
“We’ve completely changed the shortage of math and science teachers,” Mackey said.
Some districts are now looking to add engineering and computer science courses through TEAMS because they have enough teachers to cover their regular math and science classes, he said.
Allison King, who manages government relations for the Alabama Education Association, said she believes TEAMS has positively improved student access to qualified teachers.
Even one of the program’s bigger tradeoffs – teachers give up traditional tenure protections while working under TEAMS contracts – has not been a significant issue, King said.
TEAMS, which lawmakers created in 2021, is only one of the ways Alabama has used teacher pay to try to solve workforce problems in recent years.
Beginning in the 2022-23 school year, lawmakers expanded the state salary schedule so teachers with at least nine years of experience receive raises annually instead of waiting several years between step increases. Alabama also pays supplements to National Board Certified Teachers and special education teachers.
Gov. Kay Ivey has also pushed to make Alabama’s starting teacher salary the highest among surrounding states. Alabama reached that mark for a time, but neighboring states have continued raising salaries. Tennessee’s minimum starting teacher salary is now $50,000, compared with Alabama’s $48,552.
NCTQ says Alabama should take that same idea – using additional pay to change teacher behavior – one step further.
The group wants states to pay their most effective teachers more.
“We need to see teachers improving student outcomes, and when teachers do this exceptionally well, they should be rewarded for that,” Peske said.
Paying teachers the same regardless of where they work or how well they teach, she said, does not necessarily mean states are spending compensation dollars in the way that best supports student learning and improves achievement.
“It’s just really spending it in ways that are misaligned with our goals,” Peske said.
Alabama does not currently tie an individual teacher’s pay to a measure of effectiveness.
Mackey said he has looked at performance-pay systems in other states and has not been impressed with many of them because measuring teacher effectiveness fairly is difficult. He said he is watching Texas’ approach closely.
“I think it’s something we probably will try to revisit in the future,” he said.
The basic problem is that most Alabama teachers do not teach a grade or subject covered by annual state tests.
“Most of our teachers teach a subject or grade that is not tested,” Mackey said.
Some states have tried to get around that by using schoolwide reading and math results for teachers who do not teach tested subjects.
Mackey said that does not necessarily show whether an individual teacher is effective.
“It doesn’t actually tell me if you’re a good music teacher or a good American history teacher,” he said. “It just tells me how the school, on average, is doing in reading and math.”
King said she would want to see the details of any effectiveness-based pay proposal before taking a position on it. A carefully written proposal that increased teacher compensation could be worth considering, she said, but the details would matter.
She said one of the biggest concerns would be how to account for differences among classrooms, since teachers do not all start with students at the same achievement levels or with the same mix of needs.
Peske said the same thing about implementation. “We’re very cognizant that implementation is really important, and so you need to be very clear how teachers will be measured, and what they need to do to get that additional pay.”