Teachers are leaving the profession at a faster rate than they enter. As many schools look for ways to retain good teachers, signing bonuses have become popular. Some districts in New Jersey are offering $10,000-$15,000 signing bonuses. Another idea that is rearing its ugly head again is merit pay.
Merit pay for teachers, which has its roots in the early 20th century, aims to reward teachers based on factors like student performance, classroom observations, or professional development. Merit pay is based on the belief teachers would work harder to improve student performance if they were paid extra for their efforts. Many early attempts at implementing merit pay faced challenges due to concerns about fairness, subjectivity in evaluation, and lack of consensus on appropriate metrics.
Teachers’ unions resisted merit pay proposals, citing concerns about fairness, potential for favoritism, and emphasis on standardized testing. Union opposition posed a significant barrier to widespread adoption of merit pay systems.
School districts would tie standardized test scores or student achievement measures, however research showed mixed results. While some studies suggested modest improvements in student outcomes or teacher performance, others found little to no impact or unintended consequences, such as narrowing the curriculum or discouraging collaboration among teachers.
One unintended consequence of merit pay systems was cheating. Districts across the country were cited for unusually, and statistically unexplainable gains in test scores, and an inordinate amount of erasures on students score sheets.
In what was perhaps the most egregious violation of cheating on state testing, Beverly Hall, former superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools was among 35 educators who were indicted by a grand jury in a cheating scandal that drew national attention. Hall resigned from her position in 2011 after a state investigation into large, unexplained test score gains in some Atlanta schools. For at least four years, between 2005 and 2009, test answers were altered, fabricated and falsely certified (cnn.com). She denied any role in the cheating scandal.
According to the indictment, Hall placed unreasonable goals on educators and “protected and rewarded those who achieved targets by cheating.” It also alleges she fired principals who failed to achieve goals and “ignored suspicious” test score gains throughout the school system (cnn.com). With her criminal case unresolved, Hall faced up to 45 years in prison, but she died in 2015 of breast cancer.
Most recently, merit pay discussions have continued, as some states and districts are implementing performance-based compensation systems. Advocates argue for greater accountability and incentives for effective teaching, while critics raise concerns about equity, validity of assessment measures, and potential negative consequences.
As John Thompson wrote last week, “…starting with No Child Left Behind and taking off with Race to the Top, test scores were weaponized, and the dangers of performance pay grew dramatically. Output-driven teachers’ salaries, joined at the hip with unreliable and invalid accountability metrics, promoted educational malpractice that undermined meaningful teaching and learning, increasing in-one-ear-out-the-other, worksheet-driven instruction. Teamwork was damaged, trust was compromised, the flight of educators from classroom increased, and the joy of student learning declined significantly” (dianeravitch.net).
Last year, Houston Superintendent Mike Miles said the district would implement performance-based pay for all teachers and an “earned autonomy” model for campuses across the district (houstonpublicmedia.com). The current compensation model for teachers is salaries rise over time as educators gain experience. This will be replaced with a “pay-for-performance” system based largely on standardized test scores (houstonpublicmedia.com).
Oklahoma, after rejecting a proposal to increase teacher salaries, is now proposing a new merit-based teacher stipend plan (tulsaworld.com). According to the plan, “about 100 teachers across the district would be eligible to apply for advanced status under the program, which carries a $6,000 one-time raise, a $3,000 stipend and five extra contract days. Under the terms of the program guidelines, the district has to use student performance, teacher observations and out-of-classroom time as criteria to narrow down which teachers would be eligible” (tulsaworld.com).
While some research supports the effectiveness of merit pay, the success may be linked to teachers teaching only test-taking skills, focusing solely on the incentivized test which results in narrowing of the curriculum, or in the case of Atlanta, cheating. In one study, researchers concluded, the success “varies by program design and study context, suggesting that teacher merit pay has the potential to improve student test scores in some contexts but researchers and policymakers should pay close attention to program design and implementation Pham, L. D., Nguyen, T. D., & Springer, M. G. (2021)
The biggest problem with public education is not teachers, budgets, school boards, it’s poverty. Does anyone holding public office want to talk about that?
…crickets
These are my reflections for today.
April 5, 2024
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Reflections in Education 