Denver schools again sent ripples through the nation’s education community when the city’s teachers overwhelmingly voted to support a new contract that changes parts of the district’s nationally recognized alternative pay plan.
“Denver is really emerging as a place where there is something really happening in education,” said Andrew Rotherham, co-founder and co-director of Education Sector, a national education policy think tank. “National people are paying attention.”
Tuesday, in Dayton, Ohio, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama made a policy speech on education, citing Denver’s teacher pay scheme — Professional Compensation Plan for Teachers, or ProComp.
“From Prince George’s County in Maryland to Denver, Colorado, we’re seeing teachers and school boards coming together to design performance pay plans,” Obama said.
ProComp is the taxpayer-supported pay system that rewards teachers for taking on hard-to-staff positions or working at hard-to-serve schools.
The new contract restructures ProComp into more of a performance pay system — giving more money to larger numbers of teachers whose students show academic growth or whose school earns a “distinguished” rating.
At the same time, bonuses for teaching at a hard-to-serve school or a difficult subject were increased to $2,345 from $1,067 a year.
Superintendent Michael Bennet said he has heard from educators across the country who want to know how to build a similar system.
“This gives Denver one of the most progressive pay systems in the country, if not the most,” Bennet said. “People see this as a substantial advance in the conversation of how we pay teachers.”
Denver teachers voted 3-to-1 to support the new contract, which also gives them a 3 percent raise this year, union officials announced Tuesday.
Of the 1,877 teachers who voted on the contract, 77.5 percent voted in support.
In 2004, ProComp was supported by 59 percent of 2,718 union members.
“It suggests that performance pay isn’t really a very controversial thing,” said Phil Gonring, senior program officer at Rose Community Foundation.
“Seventy-seven percent affirmation, we take that as a very positive sign that teachers are on board with the very progressive changes,” Gonring said. “It suggests that they understand that performance pay system is a part of their work-a-day lives, and they want to make it work for them.”
Across the country, school districts that are seeking different pay systems can now point to Denver teachers supporting ProComp not once but twice, said Edward Wiley, assistant professor of education at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
“I can’t imagine that it won’t have an impact nationwide,” Wiley said. “You already have several districts looking at Denver saying this is not only a good idea but it can be done.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
