Why £10,000 Isn't Enough For Good Teachers

The UK government has recently announced a measure to encourage teachers to work in underperforming schools. They will be paid a £10,000 lump sum if they work in one of said schools for three years. "Brilliant," you say, "that means that we'll get good educators where they're most needed!". Well, yes and no.

Firstly, let's note that for 3 years, that's only £3,333 a year, hardly a huge pay rise. If you then note that the (minimum) starting salary for teachers in inner London is £19,827, rising to a minimum of £26,000 in the second year, then you're talking about a salary of around £30,000 for a teacher in their second year in inner London. For a teacher in the Midlands, this works out at about £24,000. (I'm using minimum figures mainly because I don't have any others, but also because I doubt most under-achieving schools are paying radically higher salaries.) Forgive me if I sound doubtful as to whether you'd be encouraged to go and be a teacher at £24,000 (in a difficult school, to boot). The inner London salary sounds more plausible, but then if you worked in the City you might get £50,000 in your second year... Will someone please explain to me how we're encouraging the best to teach?

Secondly, it turns out that government only funds 50% of the £10,000, so schools have to find the other £5,000. Admittedly I'm no expert on how much control schools have over salaries that they offer, but it seems to me that if they had extra £5k cheques lying around, they'd already be using them on salaries? Hence I can't see where the money is magically going to appear from.

Thirdly, what happens after the third year? Do the teachers leave? Are salary increments in the third, fourth, and fifth years going to amount to a total of £3,333 (equal to 12% of 2nd year salary in London, or 16% in the Midlands)? That would mean a rise of 3.8% per year in each of the three years in the Midlands (2.9% in London), which seems unlikely if the government wants public sector pay to rise at 2% per year.

So will it work? I doubt it. Far better to think about how to give teachers a sustained increase in pay, so that they can, for example, afford to live close to the schools they work in. Thomas Friedman has it right when he says that the US should give teachers a tax cut. That has the advantage that it doesn't involve increasing the budget for education, but instead squeezing tax revenue somewhat. If the UK wants to educate its children, that might be a good start.