I have been following the debate on teacher Merit Pay issue for a few years now. Which means I have followed it as a teacher and as a non-teacher. So this morning I did what most everyone does sooner or later I Googled it (yes – I know there are other search engines) and came up with over 380,000 hits on Merit Pay for teachers, I read the first two pages and came away more confused and had more questions than when I started.
Why do I care about Merit Pay? For pretty selfish reasons mostly, it could affect how I will be paid in the future and that could impact how much money I have in my pocket. It is not my over-riding “thing”, but how much I am paid for what I do is important and does impact my job choices to a certain extent. Then there is the fact that the President of the United States favors merit pay and so do many people who are in positions of educational AND political leadership, so that means there is some fire, not just smoke around this issue. It also does mean that it will probably happen in some form in the near future.
There appear to be some many pros and cons to the merit pay issue – but one con really jumps out at me.
Most of the merit pay proposals that I have read about are in some way tied to standardized testing. Now if you have read my blogs for any length of time, you will know that I am not a fan of the over-reliance on standardized testing and in the manner many in leadership are using it for, since the passage of NCLB. I am also realistic enough to know that standardized testing and how it being used for measurement purposes is not going to go away anytime soon, but that is a whole different post.
I am going to relate this blog entry more towards Special Education, but I believe it might apply to all students and teachers. Historically, our special education students don’t show their progress on standardized tests. Most of our students are at the bottom of the scales and show little to no growth from year to year. Once in a while we hit things just right and there is a huge jump either due to a sudden maturation, things are different at home, a medication change, etc., not because suddenly a “super” teacher came into that classroom. Usually it is because of something beyond the teacher or the school’s control.
Often a special education student’s progress is made in non-quantifiable or things that are not academically related (i.e. “Johnny has only been suspended for fighting 3 times this year instead of 10, Sam was able to feed himself for the first time or Sally has made it to school every day for 3 weeks in a row, whereas before she only came 3 days a week”). That kind of progress which is huge to the student, their family and the teacher, but is not measured on standardized testing and is not normally tracked as part of a teacher’s evaluation. It is more the true measure of a successful Special Education Teacher than a score on a standardized test.
Tying a Special Education teacher’s possible merit pay to how their student’s perform on a standardized test would penalize this category of teachers considerably more in contrast to our peers and would not be a true representation of our effectiveness (which I don’t believe standardized testing would for any teacher).
It would be like politicians being paid based upon their percentage ratings in multiple polls, but someone else gets to pick which poll will be used. Politicians can attempt to influence their numbers by working on the individuals being polled, but they do not have any input regarding the questions that will be asked or how those would be scored, they would just get to see the final outcome. Then linking those results to a base amount and making them eligible if funds are available for merit increases and not having their seniority or other things they do well enter into how they are compensated for the services they provide. There would be a great amount of hugh and cry from those politico’s who would be affected by that change. Yet they wonder why educators are not jumping on the merit pay bandwagon.
That is how I feel about the tying merit pay to standardized testing – not very comfortable. I can cajole, push, motivate and all those other things we do in the classroom to try to get our students to learn, but when it comes to the day of the test, I have no way to ensure that that student will attempt to do their best, if they will even try or if they will even show up. No number of after test pizza parties or words of encouragement will motivate a student who doesn’t want to be motivated.
There has to be a way to combine good performance in the classroom with seniority as well. I know that I will be a better teacher in 2-3 years than I am today and that increase in ability should be considered also when it comes to computing my pay.
Is merit pay coming to the teaching profession? I believe so, there are too many powerful people who support it. How they implement it will be the question that I am worried about. Will it be implemented fairly using actual measurements that show what is expected of a “superior” teacher or will they take the “easy” way out an tie a teacher’s ability to earn that merit pay to standardized test scores? Right now if I had to bet, it looks like those in power will take the easy way out, which is unfair to all teachers.
What are your opinions on merit pay? Is it a good thing? Am I way off base when it comes to merit pay and special education? Should we tie our pay to standardized testing? To me my research on merit pay simply raises more questions than I can find answers to.
Merit pay is not a bad thing that some make it out to be and not the salvation of education as other make it out to be, but like anything else, it will be how it will be designed and implemented, that will determine if it is a good thing or not. That is what concerns me — the possible designs that are being considered.
Put very simply put it’s all about the money – who gets it and who doesn’t.
Heidi H.
January 24, 2010
I wholeheartedly agree. Done right, merit pay may work. I would love to be rewarded for all of the extra things I do to help my students learn in my classroom. There are just too many variables to day that a test score is or isn’t due to the teacher’s influence. And what about those teachers (you know every school has them) who hang on to teaching because they’re already this far in, but they’re copying worksheets for kids every day, nothing more? Their students perform well on the test because their teacher in last year’s classroom was amazing. That teacher gets rewarded.
Dan Callahan
January 24, 2010
You pretty much summarized all of the worst fears that I, as a Special Educator, also have.
So thanks for saving me from writing that post myself!
resource220
January 24, 2010
Heidi – This issue applies to all teachers just not Special Education, but I wanted to write a little more focused than usual.
The teachers who only do what they have to, to get by in a school do a disservice to their students, and need to be held accountable. But the problem is that it is allowed to continue and peer pressure does little good when it comes to the classroom fiefdoms (sounds like a great post idea). But what can we do to help those kind of teachers?????
Harold
resource220
January 24, 2010
Dan – thanks for commenting, I am glad that I was able to voice what you are thinking, it has been bothering me for a while now and it is good to hear that I am not alone.
Harold
Heidi H.
January 24, 2010
My mother is a SpEd teacher and while this article and our fears apply there, you are right to recognize the carry over to regular ed.
Those teachers who are doing the bare minimum are protected by tenure and often rebuke changes to the status quo in their classrooms.
Mike
January 24, 2010
I LOVE the analogy to comparing politician pay based on polls to merit pay for teachers. We really need to spread this around….great read and great post…I will share via Twitter and on my Blog.
emanuel
January 31, 2010
How about merit pay for cops? Or merit pay for firefighters? Or merit pay for doctors?
We dont have any of that because everyone knows its absurd to base individuals pay upon intangibles that are outside the control of the worker.
A cop who works in the ghetto of a crime infested neighborhood shouldnt get less “merit” pay than another cop who works in an upper class enclave where crime is virtually nonexistant.
Similarly, a doctor shouldnt get better pay than another doctor just because doctor A had only 10 patients die on him while doctor B had 14 patients die on him. There are way too many variables that are outside the control of any doctor to base pay upon results.
Patients are unique, they come with a unique set of health issues, a unique set of diseases, and a unique set of responses to medication that are outside the control of the physician.
Same thing with teaching! Too many things outside the control of teachers can influence the outcomes of what students achieve, and the teacher should not be penalized or rewarded for things that are outside of his or her control. Its as simple as that.
Take a look at merit pay on a google search and instantly the word “teacher” pops up high on the list.
Its not Doctor, its not Cop, its not Firefighter.
And the only reason this is so is because of the current day politics of bashing teachers for everyone else’s shortcomings in society.
resource220
February 1, 2010
I agree with you merit pay is not the answer to any profession that you have listed and is not appropriate for teaching.
Harold
PAULA PATTERRSON
March 11, 2010
Teacher Merit pay, just like No Child Left Behind, sounds great in theory but in reality can be a nightmare. It ignores the politics that goes on in schools with administration and staff. More importantly, it will destroy or severely impact the team effort or cooperative effort of teachers sharing with other teachers, successful teaching strategies, teacher created materials, etc.
I am a special ed teacher and a co-op teacher so not only do I worry about students that are technically defined as having a disability in learning and therefore can not learn at the same pace/level as their peers but I am also dependent upon the abilities or efforts of the reg ed teacher I work with. Help! I have been paired with some losers who just sit at their desk while I do all the teaching and work. Which means a class that should have two teachers, really has only one. My schedule has also been changed many times this year as they use me “to patch up” difficulty spots. That is fine but how can that be measured? The last four weeks alone, I was pulled out of my co-op class to mentor students in reading and writing for our state proficiency tests. How is that measured? Yikes!
There are just so many factors out of our control as we all know!!! NCLB has resulted in schools bribing students to attend school (raffles for money or large screen TVs, etc.). What is at stake next?
As you say, why can’t we or don’t we measure other professions that way? Politicians measured by their polls, doctors measured by how many people they treat stay healthy, police measured for the number of people they bust that then don’t become repeat offenders (ha!) or… It comes down to control of human behavior and performance; teachers who only see students 50 minutes a day (high school) or part of a day, can only impact a student’s performance in a unreal world. Why didn’t we learn from NCLB? More and more schools are failing. Don’t you think it might be from what and how things are being measured? We are compounding the problem that NCLB created?
Help!!!