A career ladder for teachers

Recommendation 7 of the Draft Master Plan calls for the establishment of a career ladder for teachers.  Presently there is a disincentive for teachers to stay in the classroom because once at a predetermined experience level, there is no compensation for excellence in the classroom except for National Board certification.  In the profession we have had long and loud debates about ?merit pay.?  However, a career ladder sounds promising to me; more prominent roles and deeper responsibilities that are clearly defined allow teachers to select their level of involvement in their careers and benefits the system as well.  

I am a thirty-two year veteran teacher who has remained in the classroom because I consider it the beating heart of the educational body and the single most credible place from which to posit my ideas about what should be.  However, I am beginning to eye my retirement with a practical eye, and I see that I could have made much more money administering my ideas rather than testing them out daily in my classroom.  Had I made that decision, I could have made the remainder of my life much more comfortable.  (No pity, please; I wouldn?t have been a high-school principal for any amount of money.)

We need to find more ways to grow leaders among teachers and to pay them for doing work beyond their classroom duties.  Teachers are a passionate bunch when they?re new; the burnout I?ve seen comes from disillusionment, partly stemming from a system where people are impersonally labeled and paid accordingly. We can do better in recognizing and supporting the talent that we have in our teachers; in these tough economic times and a growing teacher shortage, a career ladder is a good step in the right direction.