The teaching profession needs to be modernized. While the average American holds 11 different jobs over his or her lifetime, the teaching profession is in an “antiquated rut” where teachers have essentially the same job and pay for their entire career, according to a recent report from the moderate think tank Third Way.

One element of teaching that is behind the times is the pay scale. An overwhelming majority of districts – 89 percent – use a “step and ladder” payment system. Under this system, teachers do not receive raises or promotions based on their performance in the classroom. Instead, wages increase according to years of experience (the steps), and there is a pay bump for receiving additional higher education degrees (the ladder). This means that in nearly every school in the United States, teachers aren’t being paid for great teaching. Rather, they are being paid for paper credentials and time on the job – neither of which is a reliable indicator of success.

This system helps exacerbate what’s known as the “widget effect,” where teachers are simply viewed as interchangeable parts. This leads to other problems, like low-quality performance reviews and professional development opportunities, and it even bleeds into federal policy. For example, under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, states and districts must provide “comparable” services to low-income and higher-income schools in order to tap into Title I funding. However, when it comes to teachers, this comparability is achieved if schools use the same teacher salary schedule and have the same proportion of teachers – without accounting for whether or not those teachers are actually good at their job.

The teaching profession’s outdated salary model is one factor that drives away millennials. According to polling data on job preferences from the Third Way report, “91 percent of college students with a 3.3 GPA or higher said ‘opportunities to advance within the profession’ were important,” and “89 percent said ‘salary for those established in the career’ was important.” A career in teaching clearly lacks these high-priority benefits to which modern job seekers are drawn.

Teachers are essentially forced to leave the classroom if they want to advance. Some teachers opt to become school administrators in order to achieve greater levels of responsibility and autonomy – and a higher salary. However, making this change means that skilled veteran teachers no longer serve as instructional leaders. As a result, additional training is required for the novice teachers who replace them, costing up to $2.2 billion each year, according to the report.

In order to change this, schools must implement sensible career pathways that develop teacher-leaders and give them opportunities to maximize their impact on student learning. Public Impact – another organization that advocates for improving the teaching profession – has outlined principles for creating such an “opportunity culture.” They recommend using innovative approaches like team teaching, remote teaching, and digital learning to expand the number of students that skilled teachers are able to reach. When teachers expand their reach, their pay increases accordingly. In the education world, this might sound like a radical shift, but it’s really just bringing teaching in line with other professions: the best employees earn more responsibility and higher salaries.

The Third Way report highlights one example of such a system being used right here in the District’s public schools. The Leadership Initiative for Teachers, or LIFT, is a career ladder with multiple stages that “provides high-performing teachers with opportunities to advance within the teaching profession through additional responsibilities, increased recognition, and better pay.” It works in conjunction with IMPACTplus, a compensation system developed by DC’s public schools and the local teachers’ union. Teachers advance to different stages of the LIFT ladder by consistently earning effective and highly effective ratings, and as they progress, they receive substantial increases in their base salary. They can also earn additional pay for factors like teaching high-need subjects or working in high-poverty schools. Under this system, a skilled teacher can earn over $125,000 per year. Teachers who advance through the LIFT ladder also become eligible for a variety of in-classroom leadership roles, such as consulting teacher, instructional specialist, and master educator.

To modernize the teaching profession, systems like LIFT and IMPACTplus need to be supported and expanded. Since 2006, the Department of Education has tried to encourage this through a competitive grant known as the Teacher Incentive Fund, or TIF, which rewards districts and states that use compensation structures based on classroom performance. In fact, DCPS received a $62 million TIF grant in 2012.

Sadly, however, funding for TIF would be significantly reduced by the FY 2016 spending bill currently under consideration in the Senate. And the House’s current spending proposal would eliminate the Fund altogether. Programs like TIF need continued support if we want to spur on improvements in the teaching profession and attract talented candidates. With three million teachers expected to enter the profession over the next decade, America’s classrooms can’t afford to continue business as usual.

Phillip Burgoyne-Allen is a legislative assistant at an education law firm. Reach him via email or Twitter.

The incoming president of the National Education Association, Lily Eskelsen García, recently urged teachers to revolt. “Stop listening to phony reformers,” she said. “And stop listening to those good-hearted and absolutely wrong people and do the right thing with kids. We are the educators, the professionals. We actually know what to do with children.”

Fierce words, for sure. But the underlying sentiment is a common complaint: Education reform is often done to teachers and schools rather than with them. Yet there are several organizations in the education policy world that try to improve student outcomes by working closely with teachers—organizations like Teach Plus.

That’s why I reached out to Michael Savoy, a national coach with Teach Plus. Michael is a former teacher who went on to work for DC VOICE and Pearson. He’s also done research on the role of users (teachers, students, and parents) in designing education processes. When he arrived at Teach Plus last year, he brought years of experience working with teachers, as a colleague and as a collaborator.

Michael started at Teach Plus as a leadership coach for the T3 (Turnaround Teacher Teams) initiative, where he worked with exceptional teachers who wanted to lead others without leaving the classroom. He coached teachers to develop and facilitate high-functioning, high-impact grade-level or content team meetings. In his current position, Michael plays a similar role but helps teachers facilitate group-learning sessions on topics related to the Common Core.

He’d also be more than happy to be stranded on the MARC, is father to both Pinky and the Brain, and called me out for being imprecise. Overall, an excellent conversation. Check it out below.

In 2010, right after Toyota recalled 8 million cars and lost $2 billion in sales due to several fatal car malfunctions, imagine if executives had responded by tripling the price of all of their vehicles. Knowing that consumers associate cost with quality, company leaders may have theorized that tripling the price would help boost confidence in their product.

Would there be a Toyota today?  

According to Amanda Ripley (of Smartest Kids in the World fame), this is how we should fix teaching. 

New York City took a big, important step toward teacher preparation reform this week. The city’s department of education, in a first-ever move nationwide, released scorecards on the 12 teacher education programs that supply the most educators to the city. They judge the quality of the programs based on new teachers’ performance and success (or lack thereof) in the classroom.

The scorecards highlight colleges that are graduating teachers who are highly effective, specialized, and more likely to stick with the profession for more than three years. It shines a desperately needed light on teacher preparation, one that panelists pushed for during a YEP-DC event panel this month. The event, called “Teaching the Teachers,” invited experts, researchers, and practitioners to weigh in on the all-important goal of strengthening teacher training across the nation.

A childhood tradition of mine that was as consistent as opening presents on Christmas morning or searching for my basket on Easter Sunday (which, more times than not, was in the drying machine hidden behind a fresh set of clean clothes) was sorting through the big garbage bag my mother would bring home at the end of Teacher Appreciation Week each year. You guessed it: My mother is a teacher, and every year she’d give me the honor of opening the apple-shaped pencil sharpeners, chocolates, and “I love my teacher” magnets as she sat and wrote down which student got her each gift so that she could properly address her thank-you notes. I remember thinking that my mom must feel so happy to receive all of these gifts, but the expression on her face as she scribbled down students’ names never matched my assumption.

Years later, I became a teacher and although I never received enough presents to fill a garbage bag, I certainly experienced a lot of pomp and circumstance during this week. And I have to say: Teacher Appreciation Week makes me uncomfortable. It made me uncomfortable when I was teaching, and it makes me uncomfortable now as I think about policies and systems that can help to professionalize teaching.