... at least part of what we already know or think: that basing teacher pay in part on student performance is not effective. Unfortunately, public education is not a miniature of a free-market economy, so that type of logic won't always work.
Here is the link to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution education blog post that explains more about it. The links I was able to find to the actual study were broken earlier today, but here is a link to the document that explains how teacher bonuses (and eligibility for bonuses) were calculated for the POINT (Project On INcentives in Teaching) experiment.
In the meantime, here are my concerns about pay for performance models as I've seen them proposed. I'm not opposed to them per se, but I've never seen a model that answers my questions below. I don't have time to elaborate at the moment, but I'll break these down in future posts.
1. Who says which teachers get the good students, the ones who will do FINE on the tests regardless of their teacher?
2. Who says which teachers get the students who won't pass the test to save their lives?
(and how can we guard against political or retaliatory decisions playing roles in 1 and 2?)
3. Who will control for teachers who just teach to the test and nothing else? It puts teachers in a moral quandary: to do what is RIGHT (that is to say, to teach the material richly and without regard for some arbitrary test), or to teach how to take a particular test? I truly believe that one day, we will we look back and think we have failed this round of kids even worse than, say, "whole language," because all these kids know how to do is eliminate obvious wrong answers, to work backwards, and to bubble. This testing frenzy in which we find ourselves today really scares me. I am worried about the product we're generating.
4. People talk about the "Value Added Model" as a solution to question 1, above. But no one seems to talk abou the law of diminishing returns: At some point, a teacher who has a class who is already performing at the 95th percentile, or with a 95% pass rate, or what-have-you, may not be able to increase that significantly, through no fault of her own. I've not seen a model that addresses this (valid) concern. Is the trade-off that "you get the good kids, you earn less?" If it is, that's fine -- but no one has said that.
I am not opposed to a system of merit pay. In fact, I worked under one years ago and, though it needed some tweaks, I really really appreciated that I made a difference in my salary -- and by the same token, idiots and freeloaders were making that choice, with consequences, as well. (As compared to the public schools in which you can completely shirk off hall duty, or what have you, because there are virtually no meaningful consequences.) I absolutely support merit pay. I am just not sure how we can get there with the element of test scores. I really do think about this a lot, because I hate to complain without proposing a solution. I'll keep thinking. I want to be a part of the solution.
A point of clarification: A teacher in a typical public school can, generally speaking, shirk off all assigned duties. But that teacher will suffer consequences of some sort -- not being asked back, if that teacher is within a probationary employment period (first three years of teaching in a system in Georgia and Alabama), or given lesser-desired classes next year. This is a shame, because a brilliant teacher ought to be able to "just teach," if that teacher so desires.
ReplyDeleteFor a hypothetical example, let's take Suzy Q. Ms. Q is an unbelievable teacher for AP History. She is animated, dedicated, and her students not only love her and her class, but they work hard and do well. She is, really, all that we would hope all our teachers could be. But she has things outside of school that require as much time as she can give, and so she doesn't chaperone. She can't stand hall duty, because she believes it is her job to teach, not to police, and she is constantly busy with students lingering for questions and discussions, which she thinks are more important.
Shouldn't she be allowed to make those choices? Perhaps she says it is worth it to her to not have the extra $500 raise next year, but in turn she doesn't have to do the extra work. She isn't punished by having her AP class taken from her (indeed, that would punish the students more), and in some sense, everyone wins. In the meantime, the administration makes accommodations to cover the hall duty shift, and other teachers volunteer for the chaperoning duty which is, after all, a volunteer job.
Everyone wins.