A K?12 faculty salary-growth model that provides equitable strategic increments

Abstract

Since the publication of the report, "A Nation at Risk," by the U.S. Department of Education in 1983, over 300 studies at enormous cost in dollars and effort (Tobias, 1992) have reported alarming K-12 educational shortcomings and called for rectification without including a rectifying modus operandi. A study of the comprehensive summaries of the subsequent rectifying attempts across the nation (Frase et al., 1992) revealed a variety of flawed incentive-pay programs, a dearth of benefits, and enormous costs. These programs were flawed because they were based on arbitrary criteria with arbitrary weighting factors instead of underlying principles, and were superimposed on the flawed traditional teacher-pay plan. The following sections of this article include some results of a study that had the following purposes: (1) to identify the gross flaws in the traditional teacher-pay plan and some consequential educational shortcomings: (2) to use the process of science to develop and empirically validate a salary-growth model in a manner that would yield the truths or principles underlying the distribution of equitable strategic increments; i.e., equitable increments as rewards for contributing to the rectification of educational shortcomings; and (3) to design a plausible scenario for the local implementation of this salary-growth model to distribute optimally equitable strategic increments as an on-going modus operandi. Gross Flaws of the Traditional Teacher-Pay PlanMost constituents of a school district agree that output depends strongly on the contributions of the faculty to the district's missions and education-improvement goals. Accordingly, the attraction and retention of highly qualified teachers whose capabilities and potential contributions match those missions and goals are key elements in the well-being of a district.Practical recruiting experience reveals that most young faculty members have prevailing personal needs. These needs include the repayment of student loans, growing family needs, and other personal commitments. It is pertinent to note that in