Teacher Merit Pay Tied to Education Gains (Mitt Romney's MA plan)

[DeepModem Mom]

Teacher Merit Pay Tied to Education Gains
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Published: October 4, 2005


BOSTON, Sept. 29 - Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts has a bold plan to improve public education in his state. It involves new laptops for students, new science and math teachers and, the most ambitious component of all, merit pay tied to classroom performance that could add $5,000 or more to a teacher's annual salary.

"The ability to close the achievement gap is the civil rights issue of our generation," Mr. Romney said in an interview, noting concern over test scores as well as the country's lagging production of scientists and engineers. "This is the way to do it."

He is betting large sums that his plan can work. The overhaul package he announced last week calls for $46 million in new spending for the 2006 fiscal year and $143 million for 2007.

The part of the plan that raises salaries through merit pay is building on a nascent movement around the country to turn away from a salary structure based on number of degrees and years of service.

Currently, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico and North Carolina have statewide systems that give teachers extra pay for classroom performance. Five other states - Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma and South Carolina - use money from the Milken Family Foundation for teacher development programs that can lead to higher salaries....(M)ore efforts are under way, even with resistance from the nation's leading teacher unions, which have historically opposed merit pay programs as unfair and divisive....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/04/national/04merit.html

[jody]

1. Salaries based on merit pay sounds good but often degenerates into

cronyism.

Does anyone know of a merit based pay system that is truly fair?

[PeaceProgProsp]

4. So many things besides teachers deterimine student performance.

How can a teacher do a good job if the school doesn't buy books for the kids? What if kids are undernourished or have to work after school? Why should the teacher suffer becausse society is screwed up?

This is a bullshit policy to the extent that local, state and federal governments can underfund and screw up every other aspect of society (from school infrastructure, to head start programs, to not creating a world in which parents can have decent jobs that don't require them to sacrifice family life) and then it can ultimately result in poor student performance and then they use that as an excuse to underpay one more middle class person -- the teacher.

Furthermore, you can see how this shifts the costs of supplying good school infrastructure off taxpayers and the government and on to teachers. If you're a teacher and a 1000 dollar raise depends on your students passing a test, you'd be crazy not to buy a 900 dollar reader for your class (that Neil Bush's company probably is selling) to ensure that your students do OK on that test. Is that fair? That is definitely not a good strategy for creating a functioning society.

[brentspeak]

9. Or, especially, if the parents stink

Kids with parents who don't give a rip about their child's education almost never do as well in their studies as do kids whose parents encourage their child to do well.

And if the kid is abused by their parents - forget it, that kid is usually permanantly behind the 8-Ball.

[PeaceProgProsp]

10. But even parents who don't give a rip has social causes that compound

personal failings.

Lots of rich kids have parents who don't care, but they have many other safety nets protecting them, like SAT prep, books at home, experience-broadening vacations, computers, etc.

If you have a government that, by design, impoverishes a lot of people, and you happend to be the child of one of those people, you could have a parent who cares little (but more than some rich kid's parents) and you are going to suffer much worse.

So, let's also be careful about shifting blame on to parents just as we should not shift all the financial responsibility on to teachers.

There are dozens of causes to poor pupil performance, and the government could do a great deal to mititage the damages and eliminate the causes if we, as a society, made it a priority.

[brentspeak]

11. The poorest kids from the poorest families

have always done well in school when their poor parents or close relatives were actively involved in their learning. That is practically a given.

All the SAT preps and computers in the world won't make a rich kid into a good student if that rich kid has zero motivation due to poor parenting.

Parents (or guardians) are always the key.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. I am going to argue a tiny bit with that

I have taught those poor kids for my entire career. You are correct - to a point. But there are indeed exceptions. Parental support and involvement is very important, but even with that, some kids fail.

[nvliberal]

17. Some kids are simply more capable than others.

Parenting and parental involvement is secondary.

I taught in a private school where there were many kids considered "gifted," and the high scores on the achievement tests had nothing whatever to do with my teaching ability or the parents' ability.

It was the kids, period.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. I teach special ed

For some kids, even great parenting won't turn them into straight A students.

[nvliberal]

31. That's so true.

Our job as teachers is to help every student we can achieve what's possible.

[newblewtoo]

43. Amen to that !!

I taught post-secondary vocational students for over twenty years. All students are not created equal. All students have unique skills and capabilities. Many times the best and brightest turn out to be the biggest disappointments. It is always so sad to see ability wasted. It is so rewarding to see those with lesser ability and skills work hard and achieve.

[Solo_in_MD]

6. Couple of efforts in Fed Civil Service

There is a "demo plan" that has been in use in parts of the Navy civil service for some time. Considered by many to be successful. NSPS is coming to the rest of Navy civil service soon, again based on merit and ratings.

While I like pay for performance plans as being the most real world, not sure how one could be fairly done in public education.

[PeaceProgProsp]

8. If you have 100% control over performance, then sure, have perf. pay.

But teachers have kids often for ONE YEAR. Often kids doing poorly are the product of YEARS of lack of effort by their communties, states, and federal government to provide them an environment in which they can thrive.

Teachers work hard and make a difference, sure. But is it fair to make them the party whose financial compensation is deterimined by performance they don't have 100% control over?

Especially when you consider its the teachers with the worst students who might be working the hardest in many cases just to bring them to a level that on average is not so great, is this fair?

[nvliberal]

14. It can't be fair,

for the simple reason is there is NO such thing as "merit."

How are you going to determine what's "merit" when in fact it's a subjective term?

[DebJ]

2. so then what do we do to get the parents to give a damn? Haven't

I frequently read that the number one indicator of student success is the parents of the students?

From the wife of a teacher in a rough poor city environment

[PeaceProgProsp]

5. The parents are busy working three jobs to pay off credit card debt.

There are dozens of factors that determine poor pupil performance and most of them could be remedied by a government that cared to put resources into investing in education and providing decent lives for most Americans. Making teachers bear the costs of a society that is falling down in the dozens of areas (which the government has the most power to address) is not one of the ways to solve this problem.

[spindrifter]

3. So how is this measured?

If its measured by the scores on the *ASL tests -- whatever each state calls it's achievement tests administered under No Child Left Behind--then I got news for you. Both the kids and the teachers cheat on the tests. Moreover, who do you think scores the tests? Some states use teachers--others use temps--and even outsource the exams to other states for grading. The last I knew, they were getting $11/hr. All the graders are doing is looking for key words on the essay tests. So--that system is a shambles--why stick more opportunities for cronyism and rewards for the elite school districts and crap for the poor ones into place?

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. Where in the world are you getting your information?

I don't cheat on NCLB mandated testing or on any testing for that matter. Neither do my kids. And my co-workers don't cheat either.

In my state, teachers both write and score our tests. It is a very honest and scrupulously monitored process. They most certainly do not just look for key words but actually read each and every response on each and every test. And they are paid well above $11 an hour. Good heavens, we get paid more than that to attend workshops after school.

Post some proof to back up these claims or apologize to the numerous hard working and honest teachers here at DU whom you have offended by calling us cheaters.

[badger1080]

22. Plenty do cheat

There are some papers out on Chicago teachers blatantly cheation on their pre-NCLB tests. I know Milwaukee, WI also had a problem with teachers cheating.

[proud2BlibKansan]

44. Link? Proof?

And I am sure these cheaters were all fired and lost their certification too, right?

[spindrifter]

24. I stand by my posting

If you google WASL + cheating you will see only a few of the articles about cheating on the standardized NCLB-mandated tests. California had a problem with this also.
I have known two people who have graded the standardized tests and can assure you that they are taught to spot key words. That is the only way they can keep to the pace demanded by the company that oversees the processing of the essays. The graders are also tested for reliability. The only realistic way of doing that is to look for the way they capture key words.
I certainly did not say all teachers assist their students with cheating on the standardized tests, but we all know that some teachers and some schools are under a lot of pressure to get their classes up to standard.

[Bridget Burke]

25. Why don't you do the Googling...

Produce a few links from nonpartisan groups.

Thanks!

[spindrifter]

29. Here are some

for you: archives.cnn.com/2000/fyi/sb/05/04/cheating teachers

Seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/175735_testing31.html.

LA Times 5-21-04 printed One Poor Test Result: Cheating Teachers. It's in their archives if you want to look at it.

The point is there are plenty of articles out there. There is also research on what to do to discourage the teachers who engage in this behavior.

[proud2BlibKansan]

45. Pressure does not always lead to cheating.

Cheating on standardized tests is a crime in most states punishable by loss of teaching certification. I know no teachers willing to risk their career for higher test scores.

And in my state, we most certainly do not just look for key words when grading tests. I have been a scorer and it is a painstakingly precise process. All tests are scored by several different scorers. Yes, we do read each and every word in each and every answer.

[donco6]

37. If our teachers are cheating,

they're doing a really shitty job at it! Our scores still suck.

[jody]

38. Cheating? I don't know but schools in my area teach how to take tests

instead of how to think and other critical life skills. That cheats students out of a proper education.

[msongs]

7. cheaper to pay the teachers to take the students' tests :-)

since the students take the tests and flunk, which is frequently not the fault of any teachers, we could all look good and save a ton just let the teachers take the test.

by the way, did romney have to take a qualifying test before he could run for governor?


Msongs
www.msongs.com/clark2008.htm

[WinkyDink]

12. As a retired teacher

of English, let me, on behalf of EVERY non-science and/or mathematics teacher, say to Mr. Romney: Shut yer frickin' piehole, Buster.
Thanks for the COMPLETELY non-equitable suggestion of merit pay for ONLY certain subjects' teachers.

[nvliberal]

13. This is simply a backdoor scheme to undercut unions.

The radical right DESPISES unions, and they desperately want to turn schools into "businesses," which of course they are NOT.

With so many variables going into learning, there is NO way to measure "performance" objectively.

Children are not "products" to be measured.

[jazzjunkysue]

50. Spot on, NV. I'm a teacher, and you're right. Politics and $$.

This has nothing to do with kids and learning.

Anyone who falls for these non-logical arguments lacks critical thinking skills, and should'nt be allowed to make decisions about anything as important as education.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. Oh swell

If the playing field was level, I would say fine. But I teach special ed. I have an MR 4th grader who does not know the alphabet. She is not even ready to learn how to read. But in 6 months, I have to give her the same reading test every other non-disabled 4th grader in the state is taking.

Should I just voluntarily give up part of my pay now? :eyes:

[senaca]

26. Why not have Romney and his minions try merit pay first?

Based on standards foisted on teachers politicians.
Math standards:
Can the current administration pass the 10th grade math test?
Has the current administration used fair standards in creating a balanced state budget?
What percentage of programs set forth by the current administration have worked well?

English:
Can the current administration pass the 10th grade english test?

Social Studies:
Can the current administration pass the Massachusetts State History Test?
Does the current administration have a grasp of the most pressing issues effecting this state?

Does the current administration work well with others?
Does the current administration bully the opposing party?
ETC.
As a teacher you probably would have better standards for state politicians than this list.

[Seansky]

20. Sure, convert the teachers into salespeople and turn the schools into

corporations and forget about the parents roles in the whole think...

Won't work. It assumes the issue is simple. It assumes that the teachers can control the students' environment enought to solve the social education problem we face. It assumes that teachers aren't motivated and that money would solve such lack of desire to get students to learn. It assumes that teachers are making enough based salary that the 5k is just bonus...It assumes too much.

[displacedtexan]

21. Sounds like Sylvan and/or Educate, Inc. to me.

You gotta pay to play (even in the classroom).

This stinks to high heaven, IMHO.

You're so right, Seansky!

This whole scam assumes too much. It also assumes that you can teach intelligence.

[Sabriel]

23. And what was I supposed to do about absenteeism?

At the school I was at, on any given day, over 30% of my students would be gone. What are we supposed to do, go to their houses and drag them to the classroom? Uncle Mitty, you idjit!

[Massachusetts]

27. "He is betting large sums that his plan can work"

NO CHANCE MITTens! Go back to Juggling, amuse the crowd!

"This is the way to do it."
Response: Have the parent(s) get more involved with THEIR children, insuring they complete homework & projects, (thats why they call it HOMEwork). STOP putting the burden on the TEACHERS!

[Sgent]

28. Speaking on theory...

Are you saying their is no correlation/causation between a students learning and the teacher?

If so, why do we require college and graduate degrees for teachers? Why not just throw all the teachers out and use janitors to teach?

So now we have established their is some level of correlation/causation, the questions are...

1) Can it be successfully measured, taking into account the variation in economic circumstances, parental involvement, and student ability? For instance, if two identical disadvantaged kids had different teachers, can we measure the outcomes? If so, can we eliminate the outside factor's effects on judging teaching ability, since it stands to reason that a gifted teacher would teach a disadvantaged child more than a medicore teacher, given the same circumstances.

2) If measured, do we see outliers on the positive or negative ends? Should we not reward the positive outliers and eliminate negative outliers through retraining, or eventually removing them from the job?

[1932]

30. But in any given year or semester, how much can one teacher do to pull

up a mediocre or bad student to, excellence or mediocrity?

What do you think the level of correlation/causation is?

If a teacher can get one student to raise his or her game in a class, that's considered an accomplishment.

But now conservatives want to tie teacher pay to (actually, they want to destroy public education by tying performance to) the necessity that every student in the class in a given year does better or to the luck of the draw (that the teacher gets a classroom full a kids who have been lucky enough to have a perfect storm of every factor required for excellence).

Honestly, if you're a teacher and you have a classroom of bad kids who come from a school system and society and families that, at every stage up to that point, have failed them, what % control do you think you, as a person who spends 1 hour a day with that child, have over whether that class will hit or exceed average performance?

To fix all the problems of all the kids in that classroom would require one teacher for every student working 24 hour days, and they'd have to go home every night with each kid. (Or, we could have a society which helps kids succeed from the start).

Say a single teacher has 10% control over a student's success in a given year or semester; is it fair to tie their salary to something they don't have even 50% control over?

Furthermore, who would ever want to be a teacher if their future is so much in the hands of factors they have so little control over? If you want to guarantee smart people don't become teachers (or at least, teachers who can do math and understand logic) tell them they could invest so much time and money in a career they can lose if they end up getting a job in a bad school district.

[Sgent]

33. I see what your saying

but I think your tying teacher performance to school district performance (NCLB might do this, but I wasn't intending too).

For instnace, if you have a failed classroom that rates in the 10th percentile, and after a year of "great teacher's" math instruction, they rate in the 20th percentile, you have an excellent teacher that has doubled the classrooms performance relative to their peers. The fact the kids still are woefully behind is a reflection on the system -- not on the teacher.

Same with a special ed classroom who makes definative progress, vs. one that started at the same level and makes little progress.

Given those conditions, I don't know what control a teacher has over the learning. It may be very high or very low, I don't know the research. If its sufficiently correlated, then it probably will attract more capable teachers who will see their income increase due to thier abilities.

If its not suffiently correlated, then we need to rethink our current education system, because it indicates that regardless of teacher ability, the students will learn or not learn a given amount. At that point should we pay teachers the minimum amount and invest in societal changes that will more directly increase student performance? This could be better school infrastructure, health care, food, smaller classrooms, etc.

If the ability of the teacher doesn't matter, why should we (as a society) emphasize better trained or paid teachers over worse trained or paid teachers? If it does matter, why should we not reward those with better abilities?

I know this is complex, and I'm speaking in theory. There could be other reasons for modifying the underlying basis (unions, equity between districts, etc).

I personally would not advocate for legislative changes based on what I've said above, because I don't know the answers. I do know that in large swaths of our country, the public education system is already dead. When inner city schools such as New Orleans can't graduate a single person who can perform elementery level math, the system has failed those people. I feel that common education is as important to our society as health or food, and am interested in making it better.

[1932]

47. If any single teacher's ability has a small impact on a student's perf-

ormance, the implication is not that we need to care less about the quality of the teacher. It means we need to care more about all the other factors which result in whether children have real opportunities in our society.

Just because there isn't one magic bullet but dozens of magic bullets doesn't mean we shouldn't care about any one bullet.

A plan that pretends that there's only one magic bullet and then undermines that one bullet without doing anything about every other issue is going to achieve the opposite of what it intends to achieve.

[senaca]

36. Merit pay linked to teachers does not measure performance really.

If the merit pay system is like the one tried in our area, the merit pay is based on NCLB test results for a given year. A given child's progress is not measured over the long run, so how is it really measuring the child's progress? They did not compare the prior years NCLB test to the recent year's test so how is the progress measured for a given child or teacher. They were just basing it on current scores.

If a school is a stable school as far as new children coming in and out of the school, then wouldn't it have an unfair advantage to a high change rate school? Then there is the game of trying to get the best students in a classroom or school so that scores are higher. We have that with some "lottery" charter schools.

[1932]

42. It probably measures poverty and/or tax base.

I suspect that the highest correlating factor to NCLB scores is poverty of a community and/or its tax base.

[nvliberal]

32. This is total nonsense.

What these proponents of "merit pay" want to do is try to impose a business model, a factory model, on the schools and eventually gut public schools altogether.

I've got news for you. Kids aren't widgets, and teachers don't assemble them. There are too many variables in learning that it can be measured objectively.

And tell me, what constitutes being a "gifted teacher"? One who is lecture-driven or one who employs the latest trends in hands-on learning and such? What if the person with a more traditional classroom approach has kids who "learn" better than the one using the latest approaches, or, in the same school, the opposite is the case with two other teachers?

Oh, and how are we going measure "learning"? Through "achievement" tests which don't take into account various learning styles or students' socioeconomic backgrounds or criterion-based assessments?

"Merit pay" is the same type of bogus crap the right-wing "reformers" pull on every other "accountability" issue.

[Sgent]

35. See post 33 n/t

[jody]

34. Performance appears to be highly correlated with participation in

free lunch programs, a surrogate indicator of poverty.

In my state, the average grade of students on ACT, SAT, graduation exams, etc. in a given school system are highly correlated with the percent of students who participate in free lunches, correlation coefficient is about -0.7.

In contrast, average student grades in a school system are not correlated with the average expenditures per student.

In addition, average student grades in a school system are not correlated with the racial makeup of a school system.

If those results are similar for other states, then the idea of merit raises is more like drawing a lottery for a good school or good class.

[donco6]

39. I'd seriously rethink the laptop thing.

In terms of ROI, giving kids laptops accomplishes nothing - many studies are showing that. Plus, it introduces a HUGE new operating cost for the district - repairing/replacing/reloading laptops. Staff for those positions do not come cheap. Would you rather pay for more teachers and reduce class size, or hire a cadre of tech support staff?

The article isn't nearly specific enough to know what the performance pay plan really is. Is it based on per classroom performance? If so, new teachers get the shaft, as they are usually teaching the remedial math/science courses with SPED, ELL and other challenged students. If not, how are performance gains determined? By NCLB tests alone? A group of indicators?

Anyone know?

[Fight_n_back]

40. Tie legislatures pay to poverty level

set goals and timetables for poverty level, if the goasl aren't met then the legislatures pay goes down incrementalkly until the goals are reached.

[Sgent]

41. No problem here

I'd also like to see some violent crime and healthcare statistics, plus a metric to gauge the states movement towards an open and free society.

[newscott]

46. My poor niece teaches the worst of the worst students

at an inner city high school. She'll never get a bonus with this plan. But she deserves battle pay just for going to work in the am.

[1932]

48. That's what we should be doing.

Putting more resources into places where we'll get the biggest return. Teachers who take difficult teeaching assignments should get more pay.

We don't need to polarize opportunity even more. We need to bring up the diamonds in the rough that we're ignoring.

[AztecGringo]

49. Can you say CORRUPTION???

As a teacher at a low performing school in south central L.A., I can assure you that the results would be disastrous if merit pay based on student performance were instituted. First, there would be RAMPANT cheating on tests by teachers (I know my colleagues)...

Moreover, as a teacher with many years of experience and the opportunity to transfer, you can bet your ass that I would move to a school in a high socioeconomic area of the city insofar as that is a far greater indicator of test success than other in-class variables. I have proven my dedication to teaching poor children for over 15 years, but tying my pay to their test scores is insane (i also have bills to pay, mind you). I doubt that I would be alone and the result would be a population of the least experienced educators in the poorest schools....

Dumb, dumb, dumb....

[Sgent]

51. Why?

A good merit system would base it on the individuals student's improvement relative to their peers -- not on their overall performance.

An improvement from a 5% to a 10% is better than a 95% remaining at 95%.