Sandra Paterson: Give teachers the rewards they deserve

Mrs Sayle was my teacher when I was 10. We were all a bit scared of her at the beginning of the year because rumour had it she was super-strict.

She was, but, boy, did we love her.

I still remember the detailed projects we did on other countries, and the happy hours we spent square-dancing, one of her passions. And it was Mrs Sayle whose enthusiasm for creative writing sparked my love of language.

Later, in the third form, came Mr Ellis, who helped me see that I could do maths after all; Mr Porteous, a senior biology teacher who would sit with us after the bell went and brainstorm about the future; and Mrs Brock, our 6th form English teacher who was funny and energetic and inspiring.

Somehow you never forget them. The teachers who were passionate about their subjects and passionate about kids. The sort who could control a class - and yet win hearts - and who knew how to pass on knowledge in an effective, fun kind of way.

Unfortunately, those kinds of teachers - especially male ones - are getting harder to find and to retain. A lawyer friend of mine in her 20s articulated the problem just this week: "I was top of my class in a good school, but teaching was never mentioned as a career option. We all knew it would never pay very well and it was not perceived as a proper profession like law or medicine."

And so the question is being asked - here and in many other countries - is performance-related pay part of the answer? Should "good teachers", the Mrs Sayles of the teaching world, be paid more than "bad teachers"?

While it is a simple question, the answer is anything but. I have spent some time this week talking to school principals, some in favour of performance-related pay, others against it.

They were all intelligent, reasonable people with vast industry experience, and the arguments on both sides were compelling.

And so I found myself undecided.

Researchers on an OECD study released last month found it equally complex. Noting there were few reliable studies available, they described performance-related pay as "controversial in all countries". And the arguments they listed were exactly the ones I was hearing.

Those against the idea said it worked well in the business arena but not in education. For one thing, it was extraordinarily difficult to measure teacher quality.

Teaching was teamwork, they pointed out, and paying some more than others would cause division. Anyway, teachers did the job out of passion, not for the money.

Those in favour said yes, it was difficult to measure teacher performance, but not impossible. It was also frustrating and unfair, they said, for a younger, relatively inexperienced but extremely good teacher to be paid less than a poorly performing, more experienced colleague.

Performance-based bonuses were common in many team-oriented industries, and if we wanted top-quality people in the job, they said, we needed to reward them when they did it well.

After much to-ing and fro-ing, I began to think that maybe the answer lay in the gap. Maybe the fact that what suited one principal did not suit another was actually the key, that schools and communities are all different, and that any one-size-fits-all scheme is not going to work.

The report acknowledged that performance-based teacher-pay systems around the world were often discarded after a few years. However, it also said the problem lay not in the idea, but in its implementation - that most schemes were poorly designed.

The system in New Zealand, with principals able to give teachers extra allowances for taking on middle-management roles, is on the right track but it is hampered by an extraordinary number of rules as to how they can be distributed. And it seems to ignore the fact some teachers don't want to be deans or department heads or in charge of curriculum, they just want to teach.

Bulk funding as it was in the 1990s is probably not the answer either, as, contrary to popular opinion, it did not give principals complete freedom to reward teachers as they saw fit.

But what if schools could choose? A system whereby principals who wanted to give a good teacher something extra individually could do so - be it more money, a mobile phone or just the odd meal voucher - and where those who preferred to raise salaries across the board could do so too. A truly flexible system that allowed school executives to choose, in consultation with staff, whatever worked best in their particular community.

The bottom line, however you do it, is that teachers should be paid more. In years gone by, I thought they had it pretty good. A stressful job, yes, but plenty of holidays to make up for it.

As a mother, I realise we need the best people possible in the classroom. I want my daughter's teachers to be intelligent, highly skilled and passionate. And it is clear the salaries and systems are not attractive enough to make that a guarantee.

We need more Mrs Sayles. And we need to do whatever it takes to keep them on the job.

* Sandra Paterson is a Mt Maunganui freelance journalist.