Let's flip the pay scale too while we're at it

Seems everyone's flipping their classrooms these days, so why not flip the pay scale too while we're at it?

School district financing is an increasingly tricky business and perhaps no area is trickier or more in flux than teacher salaries.

I was giving this some serious thought the other day: How can we create a more equitable compensation system for educators?

And it hit me. What should the single biggest factor in deciding what someone in the field of education makes? How many kids he/she interacts with on a daily basis.

Pay those on the front line; pay those with the kids; pay those most directly responsible for student learning and student growth. Studies tell us time and again that the single biggest factor in student learning is the teacher in a given classroom. So pay them accordingly.

Professional football players make gobs more money than their coaches because without sufficient talent on the field, the touchdowns aren't 

Without sufficient talent in front of the classrooms, the learning isn't going to happen.

And before you smell "self-serving teacher propaganda" in this ideal, let me disclose that as a half-time classroom teacher / half-time technology integration specialist, under this plan, I'd make less than teachers who spend every day, all day in the classroom.  As should be.

Who would make even less than me?
School nurses, social workers, psychologists, learning coaches, counselors.

Who'd make even less?
Principals, Vice Principals, Deans of Students.

Even less?
Business Managers and Superintendents.

Topic for another blog: (back to that football analogy) if the administrators and support staff are the coaches, and the classroom teachers are the football players, that would make the students in today's educational climate....the football.