Reference no: EM133498562

Case: The pay schedule for high school teachers in Toronto is shown in Exhibit 6.13. This is typical of many pay plans for teachers; it contains steps by which a teacher's salary increases with each year of experience as well as with additional educational attainment. Teachers' qualifications are evaluated by the Qualifications Evaluation Council of Ontario (QECO). The QECO evaluation program governs the administration of teacher category placement based on recognized standards of achievement and provides a systematic and consistent method for assessment. The categories recognize various levels of specialization and/or teacher training from Group 1 to Group 4.

degree (Group 3) and no experience. She will earn $54,647 during the current school year. Next year, she will move up one step in the schedule and earn $58,319, a raise of $3,672, or 6.7%.

Once she has received her master's degree or qualified as a subject specialist, she will move over to the next column (Group 4). Otherwise, she will stay in the Group III column and advance one step each year until she reaches step 10, when she tops out. Note that she will receive the step increase as well as any entire schedule increases that the school board gives each year. So any increase to the entire schedule translates into a larger increase for those teachers currently being paid according to the latest schedule.

Question 1: Although the stepped salary schedule has many features of a knowledge-based pay system, not everyone agrees. Is this a knowledge-based pay system? How might you change it to make it more like the person-based plans discussed in this chapter? What features would you add/drop?

Question 2: In the pay scale in the exhibit, notice that the differentials increase with additional educational attainment vary depending on years of experience; for instance, the difference between Group 3 and Group 4 at one year of experience is $3,376 ($61,695-$58,319), whereas the difference at 10 years of experience is $5,380 ($100,034-$94,654). What message do these higher differentials send to teachers? What pay theories address this issue? How would these differentials affect teacher behaviours? How would they affect school district costs?

Question 3: Calculate the size of the pay differential for increased seniority versus increased education. What behaviours do you believe these differentials will motivate? In other words, what pays better, growing older or taking courses?