Anyone who promotes merit pay does not understand the human spirit. Merit pay sets up the distinct possibility of cheating by teachers, administrators and superintendents.
It has happened in many instances in the past few years where ever it has been implemented.
The Blue Ribbon designation has brought about many instances of cheating, both locally and elsewhere.
I have read of this situation on many education lists and blogs.
Merit pay – what a misnomer for rewarding effort and success. In an inner-city district (New York City) students of huge needs are not as easy to reach/teach as those in a district with more motivated students.
A teacher in a difficult district could work his/her tail off and get the kids to reach their potential (C’s); but not to the level of another district where the teacher did not have to work as hard and the students get A’s.
Who gets the merit pay?
Joseph P. Bottini's Blog 
March 12, 2009 at 7:16 pm |
Joe,
You bring up a good point when you equate merit pay with test results. I agree that would be a horrendous idea and would cause widespread problems. However I wonder if there could be a way to implement this in a different fashion.
When I worked in the private sector I received a review after the end of the year with comments by all of my supervisors on the quality of my work. All 1st year accountants were rated on a scale of 1-5. 1’s and 2’s were put on a list in need of improvement and received no raise while 3’s, 4’s and 5’s each received a different increase in pay commensurate with their rating.
In theory I think this system could work in education, but the trick has always been the criteria that would be used to rate teachers. In my opinion, the best way to evaluate teaching performance is to have a highly qualified and properly trained administrator (who hopefully was once an outstanding teacher in the same content area that he is curently evaluating) observe teachers at least 20 or 30 times per year, collect samples of the work done by the students and review the lessons prepared by the teachers to be sure they are aligned with State Standards and the District’s curriculum.
The problem with the method I just described is that school Administration would have to be approached in a different and more expensive way. You would probably need to have something along the lines of an Assistant Superintendent for Social Studies, an Assistant Superindent for Spanish, etc… whose sole job duty would be evaluating teachers and working with them to improve instruction and learning in their content areas. Would the public be willing to spend this kind of money for more administrators? How would teachers react to being observed 20-30 times per year as opposed to the 1-4 times per year that is currently typical in school districts? Would outstanding teachers be willing to leave the classroom to take on such an administrative position? These and many other questions would need to be answered.
I know that during my teaching days I worked with some truly dedicated and gifted educators. Nothing proved that to me more than when I did classroom evaluations of my colleagues as part of my administrative internship. The quality of instruction I observed was nothing short of outstanding and I would have been proud to have my children in any of those classes. However I was also aware of some highly ineffective teachers who really should not have been in the classroom. There should be a way to reward excellence and eliminate mediocrity in education….but as I indicated earlier the trick is in how the evaluation is done and whether the public would be willing to pay teh costs associated with it.
March 14, 2009 at 12:28 pm |
Merit pay rewards for teachers simply benefit the teachers that will rubber stamp anything that an administrator wants. Paranoid, egotistical, power-hungry administrators will then use pay incentives as a way to punish wonderful, proven, experienced teachers who fail to agree to their unsound policies and practices.
Education is backwards. You have to get out of teaching to progress in the educational field. If merit incentives are to work, administrators need to be evaluated by the teachers as to their effectiveness as administrators. In addition, administrators should maintain their teaching credentials and should be required to teach one course a semester. They then should also be evaluated for their teaching skills. If they are getting the big bucks and are the leaders in the school district, let them prove it. In other words let them be subjected to the same standards as the teachers. Actually, shouldn’t they be held to higher standards?
March 21, 2009 at 4:16 pm |
Income is a negative motivator. Increasing it will not make people perform better. However, if an individual feels underpaid and is not being treated fairly, this will impair performance. The primary motivator for people to be good teachers is the satisfaction achieved by seeing quality performance by students.
Merit pay for teachers is an idea with no merit.