Teacher Compensation Practices When Collective Bargaining Disappears: A Follow-up Study 10 Years After
WCER Working Paper No. 2025-3
Steve Kimball, Anthony Milanowski, Bradley Carl, Jessica Arrigoni, and Elisabeth Geraghty
July 2025, 19 pp.
ABSTRACT: In 2011, Wisconsin curtailed public employee collective bargaining through legislation (Wisconsin Act 10) that limited the scope of bargaining to total base wages, rather than the specifics of teacher salary schedules, and tied total base wage increases to the rate of inflation. By restricting the scope of bargaining, Act 10 provided Wisconsin school districts with a much freer hand in designing teacher compensation systems, including unilaterally reforming the traditional step-and-lane salary schedule. Because some research has suggested that providing more pay system flexibility has impacts on teacher retention and student outcomes, one might predict that Wisconsin districts introducing flexible pay reforms should continue to use them. However, like many reforms in education, teacher compensation reforms are subject to entropy as conditions change and old patterns of thinking persist. This research follows up on our earlier study (Heneman et al., 2019) of 25 Wisconsin districts that revised teacher compensation systems using flexibility provided by Act 10, to investigate how many districts still use pay systems that reward performance or knowledge and skill development and provide flexibility in pay setting to recruit and retain hard-to-staff teaching specialties. Follow-up interviews and document collection conducted in fall 2024 showed that: • Most districts that moved away from traditional (step-and-lane) teacher salary schedules had largely returned to the traditional model by fall 2024. • Most are now using experience as the primary basis for pay progression. • Although many have returned to lanes for educational attainment (degrees and credits), the schedules are more streamlined and do not provide lanes for simply accumulating credits. • Almost all the districts that experimented with using teacher performance as more than a minimal requirement for pay progression or bonuses have abandoned this approach. • Most districts that used complex forms of knowledge and skill-based pay have dropped them. • Most districts are still exercising flexibility in setting starting pay for teachers in hard-to-staff or shortage fields. This is true even for those that have returned to step-and-lane schedules. Common reasons for moving back toward the traditional schedule include teacher preference, principals’ inability or unwillingness to make performance distinctions, effort/complexity of administration, and perceptions that flexibility led to inequities. In the face of statewide challenges to recruiting and retaining teachers, districts are experimenting with other approaches, including benefit enhancements, longevity pay, district recognition, and changes to build or maintain a productive culture and climate.
keywords: teacher compensation, performance pay, knowledge and skill-based pay, recruitment and retention
