Merit Pay for Teachers?
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GoogleTime magazine recently dedicated a cover to education. Despite my time helping start a Spanish immersion school and writing about education, I found so much of it eye-opening, starting with the controversy around merit pay for teachers.
As we have mentioned here and have heard elsewhere, there is high teacher turnover due to low pay and what Time dubbed "soul-crushing bureaucracy." And as the magazine rightfully pointed out, it is a grievous long-term problem in this country:
"About 3.2 million people teach in U.S. public schools, but, according to projections by economist William Hussar at the National Center for Education Statistics, the nation will need to recruit an additional 2.8 million over the next eight years owing to baby-boomer retirement, growing student enrollment and staff turnover—which is especially rapid among new teachers. Finding and keeping high-quality teachers are key to America's competitiveness as a nation. Recent test results show that U.S. 10th-graders ranked just 17th in science among peers from 30 nations, while in math they placed in the bottom five. Research suggests that a good teacher is the single most important factor in boosting achievement, more important than class size, the dollars spent per student or the quality of textbooks and materials."
School districts across the country are experimenting with ways to recruit and keep teachers, including signing bonuses and housing vouchers (New York City). But what surprised me is the one perk gaining momentum, but seen as the most controversial, is merit pay.
First of all, it is difficult to measure teacher quality. Sen. Barack Obama said he would support merit pay as long as it is not solely based on test scores and not imposed on teachers. Sen. Hillary Clinton said she supports a performance pay system on a schoolwide basis, but not merit pay for individual teachers. The reason for their carefulness on this issue is because the teacher unions do not support merit pay on the premise that it would pit teachers against each other. More from Time:
"The challenge is deciding who deserves the extra cash. Merit-pay movements in the 1920s, '50s and '80s stumbled over just that question, as the perception grew that bonuses were awarded to principals' pets. Charges of favoritism, along with unreliable funding and union opposition, sank such experiments...
In Florida, for instance, one of Governor Jeb Bush's final initiatives before he left office in January 2007 was to push through a merit-pay program that offered a 5% bonus to teachers in the top 25% in each participating district, with selection based at least 50% on how much their students' test scores jumped from one year to the next. Houston had a similar initiative, though without the 25% cap.
Both schemes met with fierce resistance. Teachers rebelled against the notion that a year's worth of instruction could be judged by how students did on a single test on a single day. They objected to the lack of clarity about how teachers of subjects not tested by the state would be assessed. And they railed against a system that pitted one colleague against another in a competition for bonuses. To make matters worse, there were gruesome glitches. In Houston, a newspaper website identified which teachers got bonuses. Later, 99 employees were asked to return about $74,000 in bonus checks issued by mistake. In Florida, one county ran short of bonus funds while another had an embarrassing discrepancy between the number of awards given in predominantly white schools and the number that went to schools with mainly black students. Both Florida and Houston have improved their programs, but local teachers remain wary. 'The new plan doesn't have clear goals,' charges Gayle Fallon, who heads the Houston Federation of Teachers. She fully expects 'all hell to break loose again.'"
I don't see how performance, or merit, pay for teachers is any different than for workers in other professions. But a couple true and tried methods in this article, which I wholeheartedly agree with, are salaries must be higher for all teachers. Unless you graduate with zero debt, who the heck can afford to teach? Also, teachers need more on-the-job training and mentoring. Here is another stat, which stood out to me: "Between a quarter and a third of new teachers quit within their first three years on the job, and as many as 50% leave poor, urban schools within five years," according to Time. Yikes.
But tax payers need to open their minds -- and their wallets -- first for any of this to gain fruition.
I think that this is a good
I think that this is a good idea. Good teachers should be rewarded with higher wages. I have gone through my fair share of lousy teachers and if I was in charge I would have had them fired but other teachers were a real delight to be their student.
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Merit pay in education
I teach at a university and have found our school's policy of merit pay to be extremely problematic. It takes an extraordinarily amount of time for administrators to rank teachers based on, among other criteria, student evaluations and whether a teacher has won a national award. (Right, how often does that happen?) Does this truly measure ones' teaching effectiveness? Being declined merit pay is particularly discouraging to new teachers, who, being held to the same standards as those with twenty years of experience, are at a natural disadvantage and easily discouraged from continuing in the profession. In addition, the bonus merit pay becomes part of the salary on which future rasises are based, meaning that one bad year in the beginning of one's career decreases earning potential for the rest of one's career. Merit pay absolutely fosters a spirit of competitiveness among teachers in which everyone is trying to grab a slice of the too-meager pie. Teaching is an extremely demanding profession and all teachers need support and cooperation rather than censure.
Merit Pay for Teachers = Bad Idea
I'm a college professor, and we have a merit pay system at the university. It is a disaster. Administrators inevitably reward their friends, and good teaching is not rewarded, while popularity with students and administrators is. We've noticed that men get rewarded more than women, resulting in a salary disparity that is so embarrassing, the university suppressed an internal study of it. My colleagues and I have also observed that our student evaluations (a major criterion for judging teaching) are always much worse during the semesters when we are creative and challenging in our teaching, and much better during those terms when, overwhelmed by committee crap and research demands, we let things slide.
Worst of all, because our salaries are public knowledge, everybody knows what everybody else makes, and the resentment this breeds (not to mention the vindictive politics) is unreal.
As to those who suggest that teaching is no different from business...Hello? If were in sales, I could be judged by my success in selling. But in education, how can you tell if I'm successful? I have students who hate me when I teach them, and then return after a couple of years to praise me, because they grew up.
Merit Pay
There are very few merit pay plans that will work within the public school system. If we begin to reward teachers based on test scores, are we not asking them to teach to the test? Our students will lack critical thinking and creativity, not to mention they will lose a love of learning.
The problem is that we are asking teachers to do more with less resources. We refuse to invest in the areas that will make learning easier for our children. How is a child that slept in a car the night before going to score well on a test? How is a child going to learn when they have never been to a dentist and have a toothache every day? These atrocities go on every day in this country because our government fails to invest in our children. Teachers will never be able to work hard enough or long enough to overcome some of the obstacles faced by our students.
Until we value the education of our children and demand the resources necessary to pay teachers like professionals and require investments in early childhood education, healthcare, housing, and after school care for children, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
I am not a teacher, but I am a parent who recognizes there is no more important profession than that of an educator.
merit pay
You don't get to pick your students, true enough, but you do pick your profession. If teachers would not do work for which they are not compensated, they would have some power to negotiate. This is America, we value what we pay for and vice versa. Teachers do things for free and then get mad about it...well, don't do it, and let the chips fall...then we may have some power to play hardball...and hardball is what we need to play to address the issues facing education. You know, I would love it if someone would come clean my house free of charge, but they won't so, I either have to pay or do it myself... the same is true of this...I have begged my colleagues to pick up their keys and walk out of the school at the end of the contacted day, leaving all that is undone undone, and when there is gridlock, to point to the negotiating table, but teachers, my friends and colleagues, say"oh the children blah blah" and allow themselves to be manipulated into uncompensated work, as if the children are our responsiblity solely and as if a well compensated work force isn't what is best for everyone. Having said all of that, the government only ever screws things up, so the last thing we need is for congress to get involved...they don't get it and never will. I can guarantee that any involment by congress will only result in more obstacles for teachers under the euphemism of "training" and it will consist of a lot of committees and general bullshit, and not one child will learn anything as a result but some one somewhere (not a teacher ) will make a bunch of money.
merit pay
I think that school administrators should be able to sweeten the pot for teachers that they find valuable...yes, this could be abused, of course, but honestly, it does seem to work in other professions...and really, given the projections for teacher shortages...something needs to be done. If you have an administrator who is in charge of hiring/renewing and so forth, let her negotiate salaries...plenty of other professions do it all the time. I would love the opportunity to argue for my salary based upon my perception of my worth( notice i did not say on my students' performance, although, honestly, that has to be part of the package that is what you are being paid to do..educate, and if that is not happening, for whatever reason, I would not anticipate a raise to be forthcoming..although I do think administrators could look at the task at hand when evaluating salary, and this could of course be part of one's argument in asking for any given salary). For those who say this is too intimidating a process for teachers..well, grow up, if you want to run with the big dogs you can't pee like a puppy... get in there and stand up for yourself, and if you can't articulate why you are deserving of your salary, then you probably won't get it, but perhaps those who cannot communicate well should think long and hard about going into the teaching profession.
Merit Pay
Isn't merit pay for teachers sort of like paying a dentist extra if their patients don't have cavities? A dentist could work very hard to educate their patients on correct brushing and flossing techniques, and still have cavities to fill because someone ate too much candy. I could work very hard as a teacher trying to reach all students and still have some kids that are bad at taking tests, don't get enough sleep, or have an unstable home life, and therefore I wouldn't get my bonus. Perhaps I should go into dentistry...
Merit Pay for Teachers
I am a 2nd grade teacher and am in my 4th year of teaching in the public school system. I, along with my colleagues, am against merit pay for teachers. One of the problem with merit pay is this: teachers have no control over the type of students that are placed in their classroom. Many factors play into how well a student does on a standardized test. These factors include economic status, parental involvement, amount of sleep, and testing ability, to name a few. Students from poor homes whose parent work multiple jobs just to keep food on the table will not perform as well on a standardized test as a student who comes from a stable home environment. A student whose parents have the time to help with daily homework and have a daily routine and set bed time tends to do better on standardized tests. A teacher can't control these factors.
We, as teachers, provide a high quality differentiated education for all of out students. We give each child what they need to be successful student based on their own individual needs. Asking students to score within a particular range, and holding teachers accountable for getting to this range, is outrageous. Every child is different and learns at his or her own pace. Teachers should be held accountable for providing their students with a high quality education. However, using standardized test scores to do so is not the answer.
Good points!
As you can tell I am not a teacher. :-)
This did not occur to me -- although I wondered what criteria the government would use to determine "good" teacher -- and it does make me question the merits of merit pay. Unlike a business, which could decide which customers to serve, a teacher must serve ALL "customers."
Education article
Interesting stuff. I am about to embark on the journey to becoming a middle school science teacher, and i know that the "going back to University at age 43" isn't going to be the toughest part of the journey.
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