A step towards performance pay?

Kate Shuttleworth at NZ Herald reports:

A pay deal has been signed between the union representing primary and intermediate teachers and the Government to introduce an allowance for 800 expert teachers worth $4 million, the start of performance pay.

Principals will endorse teachers who meet a set of criteria judged against the New Zealand curriculum and they will be assessed by a panel of people who are yet to be decided.

The union, New Zealand Educational Institute, say they took the idea of an allowance to reward experienced teaching staff to the Education Ministry in its pay negotiation round, asking for as many allowances as possible.

Its Primary Teachers Collective Agreement was fully ratified with the ministry on June 7, after long negotiations.

The “advanced classroom expertise teacher allowance” was agreed to by the ministry, but was capped at 800 eligible teachers.

By 2015, 800 teachers across 2000 primary and intermediate schools will be paid an allowance of $5000 a year – worth $4 million.

A good step in the right direction.

Better teachers should be paid more.

A staff member at NZEI said its members would not see it as performance pay because teachers’ achievement wouldn’t be based on raw National Standards data.

That’s not what performance pay should be about. It should be about flexibility so that top teachers are paid significantly more than other teachers. How one assesses who is a top teacher is something I’d leave to each principal or board.