Merit Pay

Reading this article by Dana Goldstein on the differences between Hillary's and Obama's education policies, I noticed that both of them express support for teacher merit pay.  Hillary wants to make it school-by-school, while Obama favors assessing individual teachers.

Look, merit pay is a stupid idea.  Support for merit pay is a big, flashing neon sign stating that the person in question doesn't know what they're talking about.  But before we get into our heated discussion in comments, I want to run through some scenarios that are necessary to keep in mind when considering whether teacher merit pay is a good idea or not.

Scenario A

Mrs. X and Mr. Y both teach 4th grade in the Kansas City metro area.  Their schools are separated by less than 10 miles, but they teach in different districts.  Mrs. X has 17 students in her class, while Mr. Y has 24.  None of Mrs. X's students qualify to eat breakfast at school in the mornings, while Mr. Y's class has 15 students who do qualify.  Of them, 6 arrive at school early enough to eat breakfast at least 3 times a week.

Both classes were tested at the beginning and end of the school year.  Mrs. X's class improved, on a 100-point scale, from a class average of 84 to 90.  Mr. Y's class also improved, from a class average of 71 to 74.

Which teacher deserves the higher merit pay increase?

Scenario B

The Shmawnee Shmission School District in Shmohnson County, KS, serves a primarily residential part of the KC metro.  When the Boomers were in school this district's population utterly exploded but has been steadily declining ever since.  Schools have been closed and converted to other uses for the last several years.  One school in particular - let's call it "Shmoverland Shmark Elementary" - by coincidence happens to inhabit one of the newest school buildings in the district and is one of the elementary districts seeing the most population decline.  In order to put a new, well-designed school to good use, Shmawnee Shmission has unofficially designated Shmoverland Shmark Elementary as a type of special education magnet school.  The most severly disabled kids from all over the district are bused to that school so they can benefit from a highly accessible building and a significant number of highly-trained staff.

Part of the testing strategy of NCLB is to include special education students in the general pool of test scores.  Each year brings about a new requirement for more special education students with more severe LDs to be included.  Therefore, Shmoverland Shmark Elementary has test scores that are substantially lower than many of the district's other schools. 

It would be possible to write merit pay standards that take into account school situations like this so that Shmoverland Shmark Elementary's teachers aren't penalized for teaching the special education students coming from Smrookridge and Smorinth Elementary Schools' districts.  But how complex should merit pay regulations be?

Scenarios C to Infinity

On the subject of regulartory complexity, will merit pay regulations take into account those teachers who have aides vs. those who don't?  What about relative levels of parental involvement?  That's been conclusively proven to improve student performance, whether at home or in the classroom.  Is it always a reflection upon the teacher if parents aren't involved?  Will merit pay regulations take into account the differences in building quality?  What about the teachers who have large numbers of students without health insurance?  Missing school because of sickness can adversely affect a student's performance.  What about those teachers with high numbers of immigrant children coming from homes where English is not the primary language?  Or those who teach kids of migrant workers?

Spare me the stories of lazy or incompetent teachers.  How many lazy and/or incompetent coworkers do you have?  In the magical, wonderful world of corporations is every promotion handed out to the best and brightest?  Are lazy workers identified and fired?  Or is it actually the case that for every vague rumor you've heard about some teacher somewhere you could give 10 names of actual people that you actually work with who are a disgrace to your profession?

I suffer no illusions that teachers are infallible, that they are all saints, that every one of them does the best job that he or she can.  But I also know that teaching is not a career which attracts those who want a big salary or prestige.  Whatever a person may become after being in the classroom a few years, teaching attracts those people who want to teach.  Suggesting that we can transform crummy teachers into outstanding educators merely by throwing a few dollars at them not only fails to grasp the nature of the profession, it insults every dedicated teacher who labors in drafty classrooms, who buys pencils and glue for their students, who walks through the metal detectors every day, who drives the same junker year after year.  It further demeans a profession that we already denigrate by providing such poor salaries in the first place.

Testing and linking teachers' salaries to test scores will not solve the problems in our schools.  If you really believe in education, if you truly want to see an improvement, then get involved.  Volunteer in a classroom.  Spend some time tutoring kids.  Do something.  Don't just stand on the sidelines and criticize something about which you know nothing.   Instead of just assuming that teaching is just like working at your company, go find out what it's actually like.

If Hillary and Obama want to be true progressives on this, they would propose programs that encourage community involvement in schools, not throwing good money after bad on tests, more tests and then some more tests.  Obama wouldn't say that he'd be open to vouchers if they can be shown to work, because he would know that the only way to prove they work is to implement them, something that would weaken our already-struggling schools.  Hillary wouldn't talk about continuing with NCLB, just with more federal funds, because she would know that NCLB doesn't do anything for any student's chance of success in the real world.  In spite of the amount of time our nation's schoolchidren spend doing it, filling in bubbles with a No. 2 pencil isn't a very marketable skill in the workforce.  Either Hillary or Obama could be the President Who Saved Our Schools, if they could just step outside the conventional wisdom for one minute and take a stand for the sake of our schoolchildren.

Comments

[Sir Charles]

Stephen,

Thanks for this. As someone who has a younger sister who teaches in a very challenging school district I find the attacks on teachers and teachers' unions infuriating and misinformed. My sister gets paid really poorly for the amount of work and the importance of the work that she does. She also, like most teachers, dips into her pocket to pay for things in her classroom that otherwise would not be provided (over my vehement objection, by the way). And yet, I know from her and other friends who teach, that the most likely effect of merit pay would be to create dissension in the ranks of teachers, as principals reward those who suck up to them most effectively. The notion that there is some fair and objective way to provide "merit" pay in this context is preposterous and the idea that is a means to better academic performance in schools a bad and simplistic joke.

[litbrit]

What Sir C said. I also have a younger sister who teaches in the public school system in Florida (the nation's very worst--woo-hoo! Yay Us!), and I was a teacher myself.

Merit pay might make sense, in some respects, and in theory--kinda like Libertarianism--but once you introduce Real World conditions, human nature, and all the other factors you mention, it becomes another Very Bad Idea.

A better idea: how about we cut defense spending in half--which would still leave America a defense budget that is FIVE TIMES that of the COMBINED defense budgets of the rest of the nations of the world--and use the money to provide single-payer universal health care for every citizen AND excellent starting salaries, with regular raises, for teachers. If being a teacher is as financially rewarding as any other job with comparable requirements of time, education, dedication, and effort, we'll start seeing more and more talented, brilliant college graduates entering the profession. Finally, let's also fund massive arts and music programs across the country--in our poorer and inner-city neighborhoods, especially--the way a truly civilized society, one that's committed to advancing opportunities for all, would and should do.

[David Shor]

As a student, on the other side of things, consider the other side of things.

Most teachers are not the sympathetic figures you describe. I have been fortunate enough to be in the gifted program, where more involved parents ensure that the school ration's it's best teachers. The teachers that I have had, for the most part, have been wonderful and dedicated.

But nearly every time I have left this precious bubble, and spent any time in the classrooms of the poorer(and yes, the difference is almost entirely by income) children, it has been horrifying.

These teachers do not by teaching materials for their students on low pay, on the contrary, these teachers often don't show up to work, and teach only the minimum that would prevent them from being fired(and once they gain seniority, it becomes worse).

And I do not blame them, teaching is too important to be left to the mercy of messianic altruism.

Teaching, despite your emotional appeals, is just like any other job. There is nothing romantic about writing lesson plans and reciting them to children, and answering questions.

What you suffer from, is a lack of imagination. While I acknowledge that merit pay is difficult to implement, it is not impossible.

Off the top of my head, I could imagine replicating the traditional corporate model for merit pay, which in aggregate works pretty well.

Each principal could be given a fixed budget for merit pay to distribute among the teachers in the school. The principal dishes out the money based on who he believes deserves the most pay.

What incentives prevent this from devolving into a patronage system? The fixed budgets given to every principal, is taken out of a fixed budget from the region superintendent, who doles out money based on who he believes deserves the most pay.

And the the region superintendent's budget is controlled by the tri-country commissioner, and the tri-county commissioner by the state government, and so on.

Would such a system be perfect? No, but a simple game theoretic analysis would show that it will improve educational qualities. And to me, that trumps any distributional justice concerns on the part of teachers.

[Stephen]

Most teachers are not the sympathetic figures you describe.

You pretty much disqualify everything else you say because of this.

You simply don't have the experience or knowledge to be able to say that "most teachers. . ."

Off the top of my head, I could imagine replicating the traditional corporate model for merit pay, which in aggregate works pretty well.

Off the top of my head I could imagine declaring that poor teachers will no longer be hired or tolerated, that every child in our education system is equally capable of succeeding at all academic pursuits - especially standardized tests - and that principals who make the "I'm your pal" joke will suffer from monkeys flying out of their butts.

I can imagine a lot of things, but that doesn't make them so. Community involvement is much more effective than merit pay and it doesn't cost anything. Why then should we waste our education money on something that needs to be hugely complicated in order to work?

[David Shor]

"You simply don't have the experience or knowledge to be able to say that "most teachers. . .""

If 10 years in the public school system, distributed in 5 schools in 2 states, does not qualify me to make such a statement, what does?

I started dual enrollment at my local university early in middle school. By 8th grade, my only "class" in the school system was to serve as the principals assistant. At the same time, I engaged in peer advising and conflict resolution. This arrangement was carried over when I transfered schools to be closer to university, and when I went to highschool.

These duties led me to spend time in over fifty classrooms.

Does that give me enough experience?

"Community involvement is much more effective than merit pay and it doesn't cost anything. Why then should we waste our education money on something that needs to be hugely complicated in order to work?"

There are several reasons against relying on community involvement.

Reliance on community involvement creates an extremely inequitable system where only parents with the most free time(The rich) get good educations. Poor parents can't afford to miss work for meetings with the superintendent or threaten to sue the school

What about active involvement, like bake sales and volunteer tutoring? Rich districts with a lot of soccer mom's will have plenty of volunteers for the PTA. But in poor districts, parents need to focus on paying rent.

Worse, there is no magic "Community involvement" button. Wishing that poor parents would devote more of their time to their kid's education does not make it so.

The idea I previously said however, could be passed by congress tomorrow, and implemented by the end of the school year. Changes would occur immediately.

[exlitigator]

As a teacher of an elective I have mixed feelings on Merit Pay. If based on test scores no. There are many teachers who teach valuble subjects that are not math, science, social studies or English. The other variables make it incredibly complex and arbitrary. However, the current pay system based soley on years of experience is not perfect. I switched careers to become a teacher and stared at the absolute bottom of the pay scale. If principals had some ability to reward high performing, "inexerienced" teachers and slow the raises of underperforming "experienced" teachers it could work.

[Sir Charles]

Yeah, David, changes would occur immediately, as soon as we get rid of bad and overwhelmed parents, unfair principals, poor school districts, a system of education financing that relies almost exclusivly on property taxes, and a major political party that is overwhelmingly anti-intellectual and anti-science in its world view, so much so that it has placed the dumbest son of a bitch in America in the Chief Executive's postion.

[David Shor]

"Yeah, David, changes would occur immediately, as soon as we get rid of bad and overwhelmed parents, unfair principals, poor school districts, a system of education financing that relies almost exclusivly on property taxes, and a major political party that is overwhelmingly anti-intellectual and anti-science in its world view, so much so that it has placed the dumbest son of a bitch in America in the Chief Executive's postion."

I don't see how any of that is relevant to merit pay. Clearly other measures would also be nice(Vouchers or federalizing education funding), but merit pay would work regardless of this.

Even in the presence of bad parents, unfair principals, and low budgets, an educational system with merit pay will be better than one without.

[Sir Charles]

I beg to differ. How would merit pay translate into a better educational system? Would you suddenly have a significantly different teacher pool than you have now? Do you honestly think that teachers aren't trying now, but would becasue you throw a few thousand more dollars a year at them?

Merit pay would, in my opinon, be detrimental to education because it will create all manner of morale problems when it is perceived to be, as it inevitably will, unfairly distributed.

[Stephen]

These duties led me to spend time in over fifty classrooms.

That's great. Someday perhaps you'll learn that no matter how many personal experiences you have you don't get to turn it into data. That's why my arguments against merit pay don't rest upon my own experiences.

Reliance on community involvement creates an extremely inequitable system where only parents with the most free time(The rich) get good educations.

That's why I said "community" involvement and not merely "parental" involvement. That's also why I said that my preference would be for Obama and Hillary to focus on designing some programs and incentives that will get the community - not just the parents of the children in each school - involved in our education system in ways that go beyond paying property taxes.

The idea I previously said however, could be passed by congress tomorrow, and implemented by the end of the school year. Changes would occur immediately.

I'm trying very hard to not bring your age into this, but that's an incredibly naive statement. For that matter, what idea? The one where you say we should implement merit pay based upon the corporate model? Is that how the bill should be written? It might be wise to consider just which industry's model we should emulate. My wife's department has an excellent merit pay system. It's called commissions, though I'm not sure that an inside sales, territory-based model is what we'd look for in our schools.

Even in the presence of bad parents, unfair principals, and low budgets, an educational system with merit pay will be better than one without.

And I say that even in the presence of great parents, fantastic principals and unlimited budgets, an educational system with merit pay will result in earthquakes, famine and a bad itch in that one place on your back that you can't reach.

[Felicia]

How about merit pay based upon teachers' performance--not test scores? Why can't principals and administrators decide on pay raises based upon how well they teach? Honestly, I don't think it's that difficult to tell how good a teacher is. You could also try asking the students. That doesn't mean that you only give teachers pay raises if their students' test scores go up!

[CParis]

"designing some programs and incentives that will get the community - not just the parents of the children in each school - involved in our education system in ways that go beyond paying property taxes"

The problems that you have with getting parental involvement in lower income districst (working multiple jobs, lack of parental education, etc) apply to the rest of the communtiy. Many of the other residents, whether they have children or not, don't have the extra time or energy to spend on school activities.

[David Samuels]

Stephen,

What did you think about Time magazine's article on 'How to Make Great Teachers' of a few weeks back?

In particular, I'm curious if you are familiar with the ProComp system being implemented in Denver right now, and described on Page 4 of the article.

I agree that there is a fundamental complication with the concept of merit pay that makes it difficult to implement. On the other hand, I don't think it's exactly controversial to suggest that if you provide merit-based bonuses, that will improve teachers' motivations, and well-designed programs would lead to improved performance.

Now, I certainly don't know what metrics we ought to be using in those systems, but I do fundamentally believe that they exist and can be measured and encouraged.

At the least, I think it's a good idea to allow districts to experiment and see what comes of it. I don't think merit pay is an evil plot, thought up in the smoke-filled back rooms at the RNC for the express purpose of breaking the teacher's unions, which is sort of what you are implying here. If it doesn't work, anywhere, in any of the districts it's tried in, fine. We'll try something else. But if it does provide a fairly cheap way to recognize and reward the best teachers, and maybe even to give better data on what makes for a particularly good teacher, isn't that a big net plus?

[David Samuels]

Damn, forgot the link to the article.

Here it is.