Bryan C. Hassel, Progressive Policy Institute
May 29, 2002
The Progressive Policy Institute recently published this 30-page paper by Bryan C. Hassel. It contends that American education would benefit from a "grand bargain": a sizable boost in teacher salaries combined with a modernization of the teacher compensation system. It's time, Hassel says, both to invest more in teacher pay and to "move beyond a pay method designed early in the last century." He does not promote a specific compensation system here but, rather, sets forth key design principles. He also provides brief glimpses of several extant alternative pay systems at the school, district and state level. Hassel's strongest recommendations entail widespread and deliberate experimentation "with alternatives to the traditional experience-and-degree-based pay system" and the building into such experiments of "significant flexibility in pay-setting" at the building level. This paper makes worthwhile reading for anyone seeking to understand the issues at the heart of teacher compensation policy. You can find it on the web at http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=110&subsecid=134&contentid=250543.
