Kentucky education chief: Kentucky must change its teacher-pay law

FRANKFORT — In a forceful call for "structural change," Kentucky Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis said he wants lawmakers to clear the way for local school districts to differentiate teacher pay. 

Kentucky law requires districts to maintain uniform salary schedules, which provide teachers with pay increases based on their education level and years in the classroom — no matter how effective they are.

"There is no incentive right now to be a great teacher," Lewis told the Kentucky Board of Education on Wednesday. 

Lewis said he will push the Kentucky General Assembly to change the teacher-pay statute so districts can have greater flexibility to implement changes he said are crucial for the future of the state's public schools.

"If we don't find a way to differentiate pay based on areas people teach … we flat out will not have teachers," Lewis told the Courier Journal. "There is no way around it."

Among the approaches districts could take up, should the statute change, is performance-based pay — a controversial education reform strategy that would reward effective teachers with more money.

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Lewis told reporters Wednesday that performance-based pay "should be on the table."

"We do it in every other sector," he said. "Why wouldn't we do it in education?"

The concept of paying teachers more for the results they deliver in the classroom — and on standardized tests — gained traction nationally in the early 2000s, as some urban districts began embracing performance pay and other strategies favored by the reform movement, such as charter schools.

But teachers unions have fought back strongly against the approach, arguing that teachers shouldn't be penalized financially for students entering their classrooms grade-levels behind in math and reading.

The Kentucky Department of Education lobbied for incentive pay, including approaches tied to a teacher's effectiveness, during the 2019 legislative session. Though the priority never took hold (at least publicly), incentive pay will return on the department's 2020 agenda, Lewis said Wednesday.

As seen in other districts and in charter schools, performance pay could be given to teachers not just for delivering high marks, but for helping struggling students grow their scores. It could also be tied to teacher evaluations based on classroom observations or parent feedback

The Kentucky Education Association said it opposes any type of performance pay.

"Teachers who teach students with significant cultural, language, financial or other challenges will be disadvantaged in such a scheme," the group said. "In fact, performance-based pay actually works as a disincentive for highly experienced educators to take on challenged student populations, which is what the current administration claims it wants."

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Lewis said Wednesday there are approaches other than performance pay he hopes to see districts use, such as differentiating pay for career and technical education teachers and secondary math and science teachers.

"We flat-out can't sign these people," Lewis said, noting that schools must compete with the private sector for professionals with such expertise. 

Lewis said he will also ask the state legislature to fully fund stipends for teachers who want to earn national board certification.

"Differentiated pay is a lot bigger than performance pay," he said. "I'm advocating for the big picture."

Lewis told the Courier Journal in April that he is a fan of one form of incentive pay being used in Jefferson County Public Schools. The new initiative, launched at the beginning of the 2018-19 school year, gives extra pay to teachers who choose to work at JCPS' highest-need schools.

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Educators with eight or more years of experience now receive a $1,000 signing bonus if they transfer to one of these schools, and all teachers in the building earn $400 stipends each school quarter.

More than 1,860 teachers will have received the stipends before the 2018-19 school year is out, according to JCPS.

Lewis discussed the need to keep effective teachers in the classroom shortly before presenting the state education board with data on students who have continually struggled in reading and math.

The state used K-PREP scores to track the growth of students who were in the third grade during the 2012-13 school year and scored “novice” on the state math or reading tests. By the time those students reached the eighth grade, roughly a quarter were still considered novice.

Kentucky’s black students fared the worst, the state analysis showed. More than 40% of those who scored novice in the third grade remained novice at math and reading at the end of middle school.

“Friends, this is criminal,” Lewis told the state board.

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Mandy McLaren: 502-582-4525; mmclaren@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @mandy_mclaren. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/mandym.