In any reform of anything, the devil is always in the details. And the Old Deceiver lurks still in the fine print of the pay-for-performance plan approved last week by Denver teachers. How realistic is a plan that won't fully take effect for another eight years? How will the inevitable tension between teachers on the old tenure-based system and teachers on the new plan be resolved? How to hammer out knotty issues like retirement pay and accurate assessment of student achievement? Yet let us not allow the best to become the enemy of the good. This appears to have been a truly momentous vote by a local teachers' union, agreeing to allow student achievement to be at least one of the factors to be considered in determining the compensation of new (and willing veteran) teachers. That it can be done in one place indicates that it can be done anywhere. And we relish the comment of the Denver teachers' union head Becky Wissink, who told the Denver Post in response to questions about opposition to the plan from national headquarters, "I don't open my NEA book every morning to see what I can and cannot do."
"Denver teachers approve pay-for-performance plan," by Bess Keller, Education Week, March 23, 2004
"DPS teachers approve performance for pay plan," by Allison Sherry, Denver Post, March 19, 2004
"Denver teachers take the plunge," Rocky Mountain News, March 20, 2004
"Teachers vote on pay-for-performance plan," Associated Press, March 19, 2004