Article: http://www.commonwealthmagazine.org/Voices/Perspective/2010/Summer/Teachers-are-not-to-blame.aspx
When doing research for my position paper on merit based pay, I came across an interesting article against merit based pay. The article asserted that a merit based pay system has the potential to drive teachers away from the Urban school districts (due to low scoring on standardized test in these schools), and over to high performing schools (like in the county), where a teacher is sure to make more money. The article suggested that due to this, a merit based pay system punishes teachers who are placed in harder schools, with students who did not grow up speaking or hearing Standard English (which helps a student succeed on these test). This fact alone makes merit based pay an unfair system. It can even discourage teachers from teaching in the schools that need good teachers the most.
The article goes on to say that it is not a fair system of pay because students who live in more affluent areas and go to more affluent schools will continue to do better on the test because of the way the test is written, so these teachers will reap the most benefits of this type of pay system. According to the article, with a merit based pay system we will continue to punish children for being born in a certain zip code. Schools that are attended by primarily minority children in urban areas will have year round, drills, worksheets, and test prep in an effort to over prepare for the state test, and a teachers desire for a raise. This will just widen the achievement gap, as these methods are not only proven not to work, but simply move further away from project based learning, cooperative learning, and the higher level thinking our students truly need to succeed.
The article is also filled with a ton of great data to support the idea that bad teaching is not the real reason students are not succeeding.
3 comments:
I completely think hard-working teachers deserve more money, but I think this article brings up a valid point - there could be a cost associated with merit pay that's much greater than the pay raise. Most often, the issue of teacher quality is not how hard a teacher is working - adding more money to the mix won't truly change that. But when the reality is that a teacher is almost guaranteed to make more money at an affluent school for doing the same amount of work they would at an urban school, why wouldn't they switch? I think the problem ultimately stems from the measuring stick of success - standardized testing. In order for merit pay to be effective and applicable to all teachers, both urban and suburban, some new measure of student success needs to be employed.
I completely think hard-working teachers deserve more money, but I think this article brings up a valid point - there could be a cost associated with merit pay that's much greater than the pay raise. Most often, the issue of teacher quality is not how hard a teacher is working - adding more money to the mix won't truly change that. But when the reality is that a teacher is almost guaranteed to make more money at an affluent school for doing the same amount of work they would at an urban school, why wouldn't they switch? I think the problem ultimately stems from the measuring stick of success - standardized testing. In order for merit pay to be effective and applicable to all teachers, both urban and suburban, some new measure of student success needs to be employed.
I also agree with Sally in that while merit-based pay is a good incentive, it should be geared towards keeping high quality teachers in lower performing schools. This would be great in retaining most teachers in areas who are concerend that quality teachers would flock to other schools. In some cases, teachers may ultimately choose the higher performing schools due to concerns they would overwork themselves in comparison to other teachers. Teachers' in some tested subjects scores are still affected by other teachers in their grade, so they may still inclined to leave, despite the cost associated with performance. The idea of merit pay should be ultimately tied to overall permanence evaluations to ensure only quality teachers remain in the system regardless of lower or higher performing schools.
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