Performance Pay: Coming to a City Near You!

A piece in the Baltimore Sun about a week ago stated that a state legislative committee had put a hold on "a regulation that would require student achievement be at least 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation in Maryland." This is because the committee feels the State Board of Education has started to place more specifics into the proposal than were initially proposed. According to Paul Pinsky, the law states that student achievement should be a "significant" portion of a teacher's evaluation but does not specify a percent. There is some concern that if this new teacher evaluation is not enacted, than Maryland may lose some of our Race to the Top money.

My point is not to discuss whether the legislature was justified in being surprised that the board of education had to put a numerical value to "significant." My point is to discuss performance pay. I have an aunt who is, as of last June, a retired veteran teacher. She once told my dad, regarding tenure, "I'm not sure I could go to work each day and know that I could be fired if I didn't do a good job." Obviously, that line is a little unpolished and probably doesn't completely reflect what my aunt actually thinks. However, I think there is a sentiment there that is shared by a lot of teachers.

Everyone agrees that we want good teachers teaching. However, we don't seem to want to fire bad teachers. At the same time we don't want to reward good teachers with more money. How is it fair for a teacher who consistently moves her students two years in reading gets the same pay as a teacher who pops in a video everyday and doesn't move their children much at all? I think we are sending the wrong message to teachers, you can work very hard or work very little and you'll make the same money.

Performance pay has many problems to work out to ensure that it is a fair and valid form of measurement. We need to make sure that regardless of how performance pay is awarded, it is sensitive to all the other factors that can influence students performance. However, teachers need to know that performance pay is going to happen. As a political issue its a no brainer. It is very hard for the public to accept that teachers should not be held accountable for their performance on the job, when nearly every other employed person in the world is accountable for their performance on the job. It is just a difficult argument to make and the public wants accountability from schools and that means teachers.

As I was typing this I just received an email saying another tentative contract has been reached. This brings us right back to where I began. Performance pay is going to happen, today, tomorrow, a year from now. The public supports the idea and teachers should too. Good teachers stand to make the kind of money that make teaching comparable with other bachelor level careers. Furthermore, it just makes sense, teachers should be held accountable for the job they do in the classroom. It is time for teachers to decide whether they want to be part of the process of shaping performance pay or have it forced upon them by a law. Either way, performance pay is coming to a city near you.