Merit Pay: The New Euphemism for Downsizing

[Hannah Bell]

It is no longer just about merit pay. Now the Ed Deformers want merit pay with punishment. If you are deemed a good teacher, (which is to say you work in a middle class school with privileged students who tend to be better prepared and more likely to be at grade level in reading and math), then you would be rewarded with higher pay and larger class sizes, according to a new plan introduced earlier this week by Bill Gates.

Arne Duncan has now jumped on the band wagon, specifically criticizing governors for making “dumb” education cuts, like furloughs and shortened school years, when increased class sizes would save money and possibly even benefit students. He said he would rather have his own kids in a class of 28 with a “good” teacher, than in a class of 23 with a mediocre teacher.

Shows how in touch the education secretary is with the reality in California—we typically have class sizes of 32 to 40, with PE and some music and arts classes going even higher. Personally, in 14 years of teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area, I have always had class sizes ranging from 32 to 36, and this is in science classes, with dangerous equipment and chemicals.

Teachers should not worry too much about this back door route to phony merit pay. Since the vast majority of “good” teachers will come from middle class schools (these are the ones most likely to have decent test scores), it will be mostly the high performing schools in wealthy communities that get the increased class sizes. This is something that privileged and self-entitled parents will vigorously resist in the courts and at the polls.

http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/03/merit-pay-new-euphemism-for-downsizing.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ModernSchool+%28Modern+School%29


Raising class sizes in "good" districts is also a means to create disaffection in people who are currently satisfied with their schools.

Ed deformers are devious.

[Cleita]

1. I found out the hard way back when I was a teen

that merit pay really amounted to what you could get out of the boss. I mean I was never offered more money by working hard. I had to ask for it after I found out that lazier people with less seniority than me made more an hour than I did. When I confronted the boss about it, I was told that I didn't ask and so he figured I was happy.

[Hannah Bell]

2. agreed. unless there's some concretely measurable part of your job

(widgets produced, contracts landed) "merit" recommendations tend to come down to personalities.

[Nevernose]

3. On NPR the other day, Gates said:

'Well, larger classes don't matter if you have a good teacher. Of course, that breaks down once you have 30 or 35 kids in the class." Or something very close to that.

Part of me wanted to say, "no shit, Sherlock." Part of me was glad he realizes that, even if he doesn't seem to understand that that's the reality for many urban teachers.

And part of me wanted to show him a video of my fourth period class a couple of years ago, when I was teaching at the toughest school in town and the TFA people left in tears daily ubtil they quit, and I had 55 freshmen in a class. In that situation, you have to forget about differentiating for those who read at grade level and those who read at a second grade level. You even have to forget about separating rival gang member. Just keeping order is a struggle when many of the kids don't even have chairs.

So "merit pay" can kiss my ass. Socrates would have had problems teaching a class like that, and that's if Jesus were there to help him. All I had to help me was an administrator whose sole criteria for new hires was "chicks with fake boobs, preferably blondes." Actually, now that I think about, the woman I ended up marry8ng was one of his hires, except her boobs aren't fake. But I digress.

The point is, these people have no idea of reality. What little they do know of it they believe they can overcome with disproven/unproven "value-added assessments" to justify whatever latest fad they've got up their asses. God knows that's one thing educators are used to: the latest pedagogical fads.

[2Design]

4. only accept cream of the crop students in your classroom

all others are barred - why bother with most not caring

[leftstreet]

5. K&R