The Teacher Recruitment, Retention & Compensation Subcommittee met on Thursday, Sept. 17, to review and revise its recommendations to the full committee. CLICK HERE to view the agenda. Among numerous points in a wide-ranging discussion were a desire to study the advantages and disadvantages of changing retirement benefits for new members in the Teacher Retirement System to defined contribution rather than defined benefit, educator compensation, strengthening mentoring programs for new teachers, protecting planning time for classroom teachers, and offering service cancellable loans for Georgia educator graduates.
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TRS Discussion
Rep. Mike Dudgeon (R-Johns Creek) broached the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) topic at the beginning of the meeting due to a desire to ensure the long-term health of the system. He said, and committee members agreed, that any statement from the subcommittee must be unequivocal that there be no changes in TRS benefits for current members and that the TRS administration and board should be applauded for sound management. Dudgeon said addressing the topic is not out of concern about TRS' current state but what could happen in the future with increased health care costs for retirees and increased life spans. Among statistics that he shared with the group were that only 28 percent of new teachers reach retirement under TRS. He also noted that he did not believe there was enough "time, will or resources" to change the TRS benefit plan and the recommendation was primarily to study whether it should occur in the future.
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Compensation Discussed at Length
Members also discussed educator compensation and the current proposal that uses a state average teacher salary, accounting for training and experience (T&E) for veteran educators and an undetermined compensation model for new teachers.
Dr. Charles Knapp, Education Reform Commission chair, said that the funding subcommittee has had much discussion on the important aspects of a compensation recommendation saying, "I'm pleased that we generally have a plan."
Knapp expects that a compensation proposal document will be presented at the next full meeting next Wednesday, Sept. 23, that summarizes what the plan looks like. He said the key issue that is "firming up" is the compromise on T&E that grandfathers veteran teachers and moves new teachers to one of five potential models of compensation approved by the governor's office or the state Board of Education. Knapp also said there would be consideration for models designed by districts that would have to be approved before implementation.
Knapp said much of the public confusion over the proposals that have been discussed so far is about funding. Dollars would come to districts on the basis of a state average teacher salary and then districts would determine how it pays staff. Ken Zeff, superintendent of Fulton County Schools, asked whether districts might lose money if its teaching staff average salary is above the state average salary. Knapp said that districts in that situation would be held harmless, initially, for a few years. He deferred further discussion until there was an opportunity to review the plan when it's presented next week.
"It starts to create - at least in my view - over time a set of incentives where we don't have the situation we have now or have had where over 99 percent of teachers are rated satisfactory," Knapp said. "We somehow have to move away from that and start discerning who the really good teachers are in the state." He further said that there is discussion whether TKES is mature enough as an evaluation system to actually determine that.
A later related discussion about a proposed recommendation for setting a minimum full-time teacher salary was tabled until further information on the compensation proposal was available from Knapp. (He was no longer present when the proposal was discussed due to another meeting).
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Other Proposed Recommendations
Among other recommendations to be proposed by the subcommittee were:
- Service cancellable loans for Georgia educator graduates: Initially the suggestion was to set the bar at 4 years of service in Georgia but it was determined there wasn't enough information to know what the appropriate service should be or how much the program would cost. Knapp reminded the group on this topic - as well as several others - that there was not an expectation at the recommendation level that all of the funding details be known. Cost projections and feasibility will be considered once the overall scope of the recommendations from all of the subcommittees comes together.
- Full-year clinical practice model: members supported the idea of a more in-depth internship for student teachers, with comparisons to nursing training models.
- Required quality mentoring programs and funding for teacher leaders who mentor new teachers: An initial proposal to require mentoring programs for all charters and strategic waivers systems was softened. Rather than mandating a mentoring program, the group leaned toward strong goals from the state Department of Education with the possibility of funding for adopting and implementing a program that meets the goals. In related discussion, there was general agreement about how important a mentor relationship can be for a beginning teacher. There were disparate opinions about how mentor supplements could - or even should - be funded for the additional work with a student teacher or beginning teacher.
- Protecting planning time: Members heard numerous times in conversations with teachers the need to protect planning time. The committee considered moving this item from a recommendation to a guideline, but opted to hold it out as a recommendation. In order to emphasize the importance of this point with school administration the recommendation is expected to be to include a planning time question in the LKES evaluation climate survey so that the rating may be considered in an administrator's summative evaluation.
- Guidelines: members determined that several of the proposals would work better as guidelines rather than full recommendations. These include the state following a standards adoption cycle that "makes sense", education committees of the General Assembly and the state Board of Education minimize new laws or rules that add requirements to teachers and schools, encourage flexibility on TKES observations for experienced teachers with good evaluations (a pilot was announced last week by the state DOE), and the Georgia Professional Standards Commission and the DOE should continue development of career pathways for teachers that result in potential for additional compensation not tied directly to degrees or years of experience.
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Committee Chair Reinforces Support of Teachers
At the conclusion of the meeting subcommittee Chair Pam Williams said she is concerned about teacher shortages across the state. She asked the members to consider before the next meeting whether the group would support a recommendation for a statewide campaign to boost the profession - both for current educators and those considering education. "Teachers are hurting and not feeling supported," she said. "We've got to do something to turn this around."
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Next Steps
The members will work on formatting the formal recommendations and guidelines as requested by Knapp for its next meeting on Oct. 13 at 8am.
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Craig Harper - Communications Director
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