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Compensation Policy Reviews: A Chance for EduWonks to Get Dirty in the Field

 Announcement: Market Survey (classification, job evaluation, job description, compensation review) Due July 11 (Jun 11) Kyrene School District, AZ

Their Description: The contractor shall conduct a classification, job evaluation, job description review with proposed revisions and updates, market compensation study for the District with a focus on reviewing, redefining/restructuring the jobs included in the study, providing appropriate new or revised job classification when necessary, and recommending appropriate pay....

The District administers a classification and compensation system for approximately 900 classified employees, 100 administrative employees, and 1,200 certified employees (teachers). The classification plan for classified staff involves approximately 81 classes.... Most Administrative employees work a twelve (12) month contract.... Certified employees have contracts that span almost ten (10) months.,,,The District’s work sites include the Ben Furlong Education Center and nineteen (19) elementary schools and six (6) middle schools....

Specifically, the contractor shall review the District’s existing compensation system and related human resource programs, outlining strengths and weaknesses; and provide recommendations for its improvement, specifically addressing internal equity, methods for moving employees through the pay range, performance management, and maintaining market competitiveness of the salary structure....

Upon completion of the study and presentation of report(s), the contractor shall provide on-going consultation to the District relating to this project on an “as needed” basis, including free consultation for a period of one year subsequent to the completion of this project, and a fixed hourly fee for... years 2, 3, 4, and 5....

Our Thoughts: Agreeing on the need to close a gap between theory and practice is the analysts’ equivalent of men who agree that husbands should do more housework. Neither group seems all that eager to walk the talk. Well, here’s a manageable opportunity researchers.

Private firms specialize in this work. Research outfits like RAND, HUMMRO, Westat, and MDRC who work a wide range of manpower problems for government agencies as well as public education are certainly capable. This writer would like to see a team from the new breed of education policy wonks get their hands dirty with the responsibility of advice that will be turned into action.

One group of new experts have focused on teachers and teaching in the context of collective bargaining. The organization founded by new DC Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee (who has assumed that responsibility), The New Teacher Project, is one source. A second group has looked at the cost of teaching and learning activities, and resource reallocation. Marguerite Roza of the Center on Reinventing Public Education comes to mind. Andy Rotherham, cofounder of the New Democrat EducationSector is the kind of big-picture thinker to link the two.

Eduwonks should grab at this kind of opportunity for their own professional reasons. None are disinterested third parties researchers; all have views on “how it should be done.” As a member of RAND’s professional staff in the 1990’s, this writer was struck by the difference between its “research” work for the military, requested specifically in support of a real-world decision on operations, budgets, or production; and its “policy” work in education, which at that time almost never supported any official’s practical decisions for public schools.  

Every policy wonk wants the chance to take the insight gained from research and apply it to real world decisions. Far more valuable for the researcher is the experience of looking at the problem over the shoulder of someone who has to live with the final decision. Working in the real world can only sharpen analysis. Once policy wonks are forced to apply the criteria of feasibility, most understand ideology is a compass rather than a road map, and seek attainable outcomes.