Since this week we are discussing Merit Pay for teachers, this seemed like an interesting topic to blog on. There was a recent Washington Post Article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/21/AR2010092103413_pf.html (from tuesday) that comments on a new study about merit pay and student achievement. This study found no significant gain in student achievement. It was a study done over three years in Nashville and compared two groups of teachers, 1 was eligible for a bonuses based on test scores while the other was not. The study found no significant difference in test scores except in the 6th grade. However, critics of the study argue that it misses two of the major purposes of merit pay which are teacher retention and getting a wider range of applicants to teaching jobs. They argue that merit pay would get more of the brightest into teaching because they could be earning comparable pay to their counterparts in other professions.
Obama has significantly increased support for merit pay but without any significant evidence to show its effectiveness. I think the critics of the study make valid arguments for why the study is not comprehensive but the study does seem to suggest that changes such as merit pay are not going to be stand alone answers to the problems of education. It is going to have to be a bundle of changes that are made together to significantly change the state of our education system.
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After your post and the Thursday evening discussion about this topic, I felt drawn to this post to comment. I'm glad this study was done, not because the results showed an insignificant difference between merit pay and increase test scores, but because I believe the flaws of the study are a great point of discussion.
I really believe the critics are right about the two main purposes of merit pay. In a complex a profession as teaching, we can't expect that simply increasing the possible financial benefit of increasing test scores will, on average across the board of current teachers. I don't think we currently have a national corps of teachers who are working well under their ability level, or 'ceiling', as it pertains to the ability to increase student achievement as measured by various means.
In discussions I generally assert that teacher retention is one of the biggest factors impacting students achievement, not just from a strict teaching ability level but in terms of a stable school community/culture. Additionally, many young people who join organizations such as Teach for America (and similar, smaller or local level teaching orgs.) have a high ceiling because of their commitment to success/excellence. Their potential after, say, 5 or 6 years is quite enormous in my opinion. However, such ambitious people are drawn to "move up" in the world and teaching, as it stands, does not provide a transparent incentive.
A study like this was born for criticism, not necessarily because of its poor execution, but simply because there remains the possibility for so much variance in virtually every area of measurement. In this blog response, I’ll focus on the term “merit pay” and its many potential meanings.
What exactly is "merit pay for teachers?" As we discussed last Thursday, is "20 thou" enough? Can we define "merit pay" as an extra $900 at the end of the year? Until we as educators agree on a general salary that meets the requirement of the terminology "merit pay," we will constantly be clarifying our terms. If the "merit pay" is closer to the $900 number, of course it's not going to increase teacher effectiveness and test scores.
What should the dollar amount be? For this, we should avoid % salary and talk absolute numbers. In the Tennessee study, $15k seems like a hefty sum for a teacher’s salary. But educators, especially those in residency programs valuing leadership and talent like TFA and BCTR, long have idealized the teaching profession as one that should eventually align with the culture of law or medicine. Would $15k actually draw in someone who otherwise would have been a lawyer or doctor (I mention these two professions as a metaphor for all jobs requiring high levels of competition and talent)?
We should hesitate to define merit pay as a percentage of teacher salary, because that assumes that the dollar figure is attractive to someone who is already a teacher. In an ideal world, let’s talk absolute numbers, and make them as comparable to doctors and lawyers as possible.
So let’s increase the dollar amount so doctors and lawyers will turn their heads. Then, we’ll wait a few years to see who it draws in. Then we'll tell Nashville Public Schools to do the study once more.
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