Merit Pay Circus- "If I Had My Druthers, We'd Pay All Teachers Equally"...

You can't turn around these days without seeing an article on Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the DC school system and all-around advocate for shaking things up.  Many of the things Rhee is doing center around getting the right talent in place to teach kids, lead teachers and manage schools.  Beyond that, she’s been out to to get merit pay in place for her teachers to help change the culture.  

So, she's been celebrated, of which I'm an advocate.  The problem is that the concept of merit pay for teachers has trickled into the rest of the primary educational system, where progressive leadership towards pay for performance is..... well, let's just say that it's not exactly embraced,

More on merit pay and teachers in the non-Rhee world from the Pensacola News Journal:

"About 340 Escambia County (FL) educators have opted out of the merit pay program, about 160 fewer than last year.

The Florida Legislature appropriated around $38 million for the Merit Award Program, which gives bonuses to high-performing educators and administrators. Escambia received $2.1 million, which has been distributed in bonus checks of about $2,000 to more than 900 of the 1,800 teachers and administrators who qualified.

Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said the rub comes from figuring out how to distribute the $2.1 million. "If I had my druthers, we'd take it and pay all teachers," he said.

"People do the best they can no matter what," she said. "On the other side, there are people who have moral issues with it and absolutely are not going to take it. I have respect for both sides."  Escambia is one of nine districts with a merit pay program. Santa Rosa County does not have one. Participation is voluntary, and criteria are set by district officials.

The program has been controversial because some believe it does not reward all deserving teachers. A number teachers who opted out declined to comment for this story.

Problem number one - when you have a leader saying ""If I had my druthers, we'd take it and pay all teachers," you're hosed from the beginning.  That can't be the talking point from the leader on pay for performance.  It blows me away that's the quote from this guy in a leadership position.  I'll stop there, I could rant on that for days.

Still, all I have to do is run the numbers, and it's clear that the total comp mix doesn't provide enough skin in the game to make a conservative group of teachers embrace merit and pay-for-performance.

Here's why.  When you think about an average teaching salary of 40-45K, the bonus amounts represent between 2-3% of the teacher's salary.  Not enough for teachers to give up the across the board increase that's long been the domain of the union. 

Contrast that plan with the DC plan, where a two-tiered system would allow confident teachers to "opt in", and potentially earn bonuses of reportedly up to 20K per year (over 50% of the base if you use the numbers above), with raises based on student test scores and other evaluation measures, regardless of degrees. Opting in to the DC plan would require teachers to give up their seniority rights and tenure, however, and enter into an initial probation period.

Contrasting the DC plan with the Florida model provides a nice case study on change and pay for performance.  Which one do you think has a better chance of improving the schools?  The answer is obvious... 

Comments

[Darcy]

As a Compensation professional who fully believes in the concept of pay-for-performance, and who is married to a 4th grade teacher, I have some very conflicting emotions about this topic.

I think that those who perform should get rewarded monetarily. But my husband claims that teachers need to share ideas and work together for the benefits of their students, and most of these types of plans for teachers discourage that sharing. So there's strike #1.

The other issue that exists is that teachers can't control parents. I understand that it's my responsibility to work with my kids, and that their teachers can't possibly be expected to teach them every thing they need to know in life. But in my husband's school which is in a very low-income area, they have kindergarten students show up who don't know even one letter or how a book works. Is it appropriate to expect those teacher's students to perform as well as my kids on standardized tests? No way, strike #2.

If assesments could be created that measured how much growth occurred and was weighted for the amount of parental involvement, I'd be all over merit pay for teachers. But standardized tests don't measure this, so until that assesment exists, I think Michelle Rhee is taking too strict a stance. I know a great many teachers and I know they all work really hard for very little money.

[J Merrill]

I've routinely seen those industries, fraught with corruption and liberal mindsets, pan pay for performance. Why? Here we go again with utopian principles versus the reality of the common man.

John Stossel did a expose on educators and pay, also applauding pay for performance. He was subsequently condemed as a heretic by all the major education groups.

I first thought education issues were isolated to large cities or rural counties. Having lived in many places across the US and overseas, I've realized the hard truth - there are education issues everywere, with pockets of sanity.

Secondly, education administration is against pay for peformance, not teachers. Having spoken to various school board members and teachers alike, what is not readily seen is the entrenched politics and deceptive financial manipulations. All claim to keep the school system afloat, but in reality, pay school and district leadership payroll and pet projects.

Pay for performance is step 2. Step one needs to be a resimplifcation of the education system. The complexities that school districts have placed on teachers drive cost up.

Step 3 would be run schools like a business. Enable and empower teachers to teach the subjects - not the tests. Provide budget transparency and report financial status to the community. Many schools hire lesson planners to tell teachers what to teach and also refuse to open their books to the public. Audits are confidential and rife with corruption potential.

As a taxpayer, I am distrubed that schools can "opt out" of pay for performance. Why do we tolerate incompetence in our school systems?

[Chris - Manager's Sandbox]

Kris,

Great concept, but merit pay for teachers has many issues, a few of which you've touched on in your article. I don't believe test scores are a fair way of distributing merit pay to teachers. Too much of how kids do on test scores is simply luck of the draw - did you get "good kids" or "trouble kids"; how involved are the child's parents; what sort of resources does the school provide you to work with; who establishes what "acceptable" test scores are; are teachers going to start (much like in no-child left behind) start teaching for a test instead of teaching to help kids truly gain knowledge; how do you "test" and evaluate subjective things like art and music?

There are too many variables that teachers either don't have control over or for which there are not good answers. I LOVE the idea of merit pay for teachers, but struggle to see how you create a system that works in a way that's fair and truly accomplishes what it seeks to.

- Chris