Merit Pay
Today President Obama discussed the introduction of Merit Pay as way to reward educators for increasing our students academic performance. He feels this concept will raise the country's academic bar and reward those who increase student achievement.
While the concept clearly has value studies have shown over the past 20 years that Merit Pay is not easy to implement nor is there a cookie cutter formula to base this incentive on since each state has it own academic standard.
The concerns from the teachers are obvious, how do compare say a Math Teacher who has test scores to show progress versus an Art Teacher who can not show any empirical evidence of improving student learning.
This doesn't even address any issues that may arise between Districts and their respective Unions in terms of their Collective Barginning Agreements. As you see the water is little muddy here.
Districts will also have concerns in terms of developing a "consistent " standard across the state much less on a national level.
While I agree with the concept and feel it has definite value to children's education I would be surprised if any type of Merit pay is put into place in the near future.
While the concept clearly has value studies have shown over the past 20 years that Merit Pay is not easy to implement nor is there a cookie cutter formula to base this incentive on since each state has it own academic standard.
The concerns from the teachers are obvious, how do compare say a Math Teacher who has test scores to show progress versus an Art Teacher who can not show any empirical evidence of improving student learning.
This doesn't even address any issues that may arise between Districts and their respective Unions in terms of their Collective Barginning Agreements. As you see the water is little muddy here.
Districts will also have concerns in terms of developing a "consistent " standard across the state much less on a national level.
While I agree with the concept and feel it has definite value to children's education I would be surprised if any type of Merit pay is put into place in the near future.
posted by Paul Sroka at
3:41 PM
6 Comments:
why would you have to compare math to art in the first place? maybe the merits should be more so rewarded from the students themselves on the educators, no matter what subject, inspire and move them.
I don't think they were comparing math to art... The idea is that you can quantitatively deduce which is the better of two math teachers based on the their respective students' scores in math... However, you cannot quantitatively compare two art teachers because the quality of art produced by their respective students' is subjective.
However, if there were to be a quantitative bent to art curriculum (art history, identification of genres, etc) then you could have a standard test to determine who learned more about art under the tutelage of each teacher... the creative part of art class could be emulation of the art that the students are learning about... which would not be considered in the testing.
I think putting the decision to the students is a dangerously unreliable method... Some of the best teachers I had were ones that I hated while I had them.
Merit pay for doing their job? I think not. Also, it goes back to "teaching to the test." The temptation would be there for some teachers to help out their students a little too much in order to show improvement and put a few extra dollars in their pocket.
This comment has been removed by the author.
i do have to say i agree with amom. And frankly, the more I think about it, educators get annual raises some the new school year whether they do good or not, so, there's your merit reward darlins... you still have a friggin job in this economy!
There has to be some way to differentiate between the teacher that truly inspires students on a consistent basis and the teacher that stands in the front of a room for 180 days and delivers information... awaiting vessel be damned.
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