Merit Pay

Public Education Matters

1.13.10 Merit Pay

In an article comparing state and county school graduation rates written by Jerry Battiste in the Bluffton News-Banner of Bluffton, IN, Mr. Battiste writes “Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett used the latest numbers (graduation rates) to both applaud the efforts of state educators and push his agenda to reward only those educators who perform well at their jobs. Bennett has said repeatedly he favors the idea of merit pay for teachers, a key part of the new Race to the Top program which will provide federal stimulus money to schools which implement changes, including a system which rewards teachers and administrators at schools where students perform well academically.”

The state’s schools, including those in Adams and Wells Counties where I work, are struggling to figure out how to replace and or supplement dwindling tax revenues. This does seem to put them and the state’s education officials at the mercy of applying to compete for stimulus funds from the Race to the Top federal program being implemented by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. From my perspective it is disheartening to see the country’s educational system going down this particular road. It is particularly disheartening to me to see Tony Bennett seemingly revving up his engines enthusiastically to join in this race. There are many reasons why I feel this way, many of which I’ll write about in the future, but the subject I’d like to tackle today is Merit Pay (sometimes referred to as performance pay.)

Merit pay is part of education reform agenda currently being pushed by our President (Sorry, I love you Obama but we aren't seeing eye to eye on this issue!) and his education secretary, Dr. Duncan. I’ll let you go ahead and “google” for their reasons to push this agenda. In the meantime, I hope you’ll also read through my thoughts and concerns about merit pay for educators.

So what is merit pay? Merit pay is a pay scale based on performance. In theory, the teachers who are judged as being poor teachers would be paid less than those teachers judged as “super-duper” teachers. There could even be a scale of some sort rather than just two categories. Those types of details are not important for the sake of this discussion however. What I’d like to question here is, “How do you decide who is good and who is bad?” I dare you again to google for answers to this question because I’ve been googling for the answer for years. I’ve been “googling” before there was google and you had to go to actual libraries and bookstores. I’ve also asked my colleagues and asked my friends this question. And here’s the thing that I found and that I think you’ll find too; NO ONE REALLY KNOWS!

Not only that, but no one even seems to agree really on "What or who IS a good teacher?" The closest thing to actual research that I can find on the matter is from an article in Atlantic Monthly “What makes a Teacher Great” by Amanda Ripley. What Ms. Ripley cites is information from the “Teach for America” program. What they concluded through their research is that there are patterns and tendencies of teachers who were consistently able to raise test scores for children over a grade level’s growth in a year’s time. (In the future I’ll be writing about these patterns and tendencies.) These patterns and tendencies might be looked for in teacher candidates and also rated in teachers already employed, but I don’t necessarily see this as an argument for merit pay.

Some people think that just measuring teacher performance by test scores would be a fair way to evaluate for a teacher’s pay. But I don’t think it’s very hard to see the flaws in a system that does this. First, there is the issue of the population of students being evaluated; individual differences and changing conditions of and around the students themselves. In short, Ms. Fingato’s 3rd grade class is not comprised of the exact same children as Mr. Baker’s 3rd grade class. (Ms. Fingato and Mr. Baker are fictional characters based on the many fine 3rd grade teachers that I know.)

A person might also think that you can compare individual student’s test scores from one year to the next to see if there is growth and base a teacher’s pay on this. Woe to the teacher who has a student with a debilitating illness or injury then! Hooray for the teacher who happens to have a classroom full of students whose parents have many resources and are involved and reinforce lessons and insist their children do homework! The point is- many factors can interfere with or promote a student’s achievement. Is it fair to attribute them all to the teacher?

Second, there is the issue of testing itself. Are the tests we use really valid in measuring student growth accurately? Again, I’ll tackle this issue in another blog post, but let me just say that given the experiences I’ve had in our schools with these tests (particularly the NWEA and the ISTEP) I sincerely doubt that a lot of them do anything more than pad the pockets of test publishers and give education officials and legislators numbers to use in their manipulations.

None of this touches on my biggest problem with merit pay. My biggest problem is that I can’t find any research anywhere saying that it really works across the board in raising either productivity, achievement, or cooperation, even in the private sector. Sure, competition for a prize or a score or a cupcake might motivate some individuals to achieve. We’ve all read anecdotal stories in our papers about such individuals. But unless you make it a “Special Olympics” there are a lot of losers and only a few winners. How is it fair to award the fabulous flamboyant 12th grade AP Science teacher when part of his success (or the students’ success) is based on the frumpy little Ms Fingato (our fictional 3rd grade teacher) who excited little scientific imaginations with her rap song about gravity way back when.

So if you have few winners and many losers in this race, do you not think that eventually this might become quite discouraging to some of the teachers who might only be considered “foot soldiers” and not judged to deserving of “the big bucks?” And what are the effects of pitting Ms. Fingato against Mr. Baker in a competition? I doubt if Ms. Fingato is going to be too willing to share her rap song with Mr. Baker. Nor is Mr. Baker going to share with her, his double top secret method of simplifying multiplication. And don’t we want our teachers to share and collaborate and trade their best secrets? Don’t you think this might be advantageous for our students?

Also, I just don’t see that logistically merit pay makes any sense for a school system. Right now in Indiana (as well as in the rest of the country) we have a process that is called “Collective Bargaining” to decide on salaries and benefits for teachers. Representatives from the school district and representatives from the teacher’s union sit down to come to agreement for all the teachers in a system. Sometimes it’s not a very pretty process, but can you even imagine how UGLY and time consuming it would be for administrators (as well as the teachers) to have to come to pay agreements with each individual separately? I’d think you’d have to hire more staff just to do that! Because take a look around next time you are in a school and I think you’ll see that teachers and administrators are all quite busy already! And then think of the disputes that could arise! What if Mr. Bleak the principal just doesn’t like poor Ms. Fingato and she decides to take issue legally? Really, do you want to tie up MORE of our educational dollars with the legal system? I don’t!

I sincerely wish that I could talk personally and debate the issue of merit pay one to one with Dr. Duncan and Dr. Bennett. I’d like to hear their answers to my questions and my concerns. I’d like to be convinced that I’m wrong, because I tell you what- if they are going to want to start paying me what I’m worth, then they better be ready to pay big! Otherwise, they better just go for one of those low dollar dime-store teachers and not one with a Masters Degree and a whole boatload of experience and expertise.