A Merit Pay Head Butt
Should a teacher’s pay raises (or lack thereof) be tied to how well he or she does the job? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks so, and there is a bill in the Legislature that would require establishment of a system to evaluate teachers for “merit pay.” Opinion asked Mandy Redfern, a teacher at La Canada Elementary, and Hailly Korman, a teacher at 122nd Street Elementary in Los Angeles, to debate the merit-pay question by e-mail. After each introduced her position, they flipped a coin to determine who would respond first. The editors -- with each party’s final approval -- condensed and edited the exchange.
Redfern: Merit pay would hurt students because it would create a two-tier public education system. Good teachers who want higher salaries would flock to districts where raising test scores and demonstrating high student achievement would be easier. Within a short period of time, lower-performing schools would be left with less-effective teachers. They would lack experienced colleagues who could help them improve teaching practices. The merit-pay model has been tried elsewhere and has failed. Should we try a failing model on our students?
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Korman: Like most teachers, good or bad, I wouldn’t change much about how I teach if you paid me half as much or twice as much. The implication that I would be a better teacher if I just tried harder is absurd and offensive. Merit pay won’t fix my leaking ceiling or teach my students how to read, but it would help ensure that good teachers stay in the classroom, and encourage a larger pool of talented college students to consider a teaching career. It’s time to modernize our profession.
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On 3/7/05 at 12:33 p.m.
Redfern wrote:
I cannot agree more that the idea that merit pay would make me a more effective teacher is offensive. Teachers work hard every day because they love their students. Introducing merit pay would not modernize the teaching profession. It would completely change it. Teachers currently work in an environment that promotes collaboration, which meets the needs of students. A workforce of teachers competing for pay encourages teachers to keep good ideas and teaching practices to themselves. This does not help students achieve higher standards.
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On 3/7/05 at 8:28 p.m.
Korman wrote:
Every teacher’s professional objective should be individual improvement. Collaboration is one highly effective way to meet that goal, but our attention should always be focused on our own practices. Performance-based pay wouldn’t undermine professional development -- it would encourage it. The staggering number of students working below grade level is evidence enough that our current system does not meet the needs of our children, particularly poor and minority students.
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On 3/11/05 at 3:41 p.m.
Redfern wrote:
The governor’s merit-pay proposal ties salary increases to improvements in students’ academic achievement as measured by standardized tests. This means that standardized tests would need to be developed for all subject matters (including PE and the arts) and all grade levels (including preschool and kindergarten). That’s an expensive undertaking and would lead to more wasted time on test-taking. Standardized tests cannot demonstrate all that a child knows, but if teachers’ salaries are tied to test results, the answers to the tests would become all that any child knows.
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On 3/12/05 at 11:57 a.m.
Korman wrote:
Any well-designed merit-pay plan should begin with an indicator of teacher quality that uses information from many sources. Researchers have designed “value-added” assessments that measure student improvement over a year. This is one tool that can help identify good teaching. Every teacher can be -- and should be -- evaluated effectively. Teaching is both a science and an art, and we should be paid in a way that recognizes how complex a job it is.
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On 3/13/05 at 6:18 p.m.
Redfern wrote:
A 2003 Rand [Corp.] report concluded that ranking teachers according to value-added assessment tools should be avoided because they can’t consistently measure teacher effectiveness. Another study (Amrein and Berliner, 2003) shows that teachers are leaving public schools to escape high-stakes tests because they compromise their enjoyment of teaching. If high-stakes testing were eliminated, the money would no longer be channeled to testing corporations but directly to our classrooms.
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On 3/14/05 at 4:57 p.m.
Korman wrote:
No one test best captures a student’s abilities, and no single existing tool accurately measures the effectiveness of every teacher. But that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Innovation and research can produce evaluation tools that can more reliably identify teaching skill in every classroom and its effect on students. By assessing teacher performance, we can support, duplicate and reward the most effective teaching practices. Merit-based pay helps to do that.
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On 3/15/05 at 8:49 p.m.
Redfern wrote:
Right, no accurate tool exists. We should innovate and reform research until these tools are created. Research currently shows there are no evaluation tools that can reliably tie teacher performance to improved test scores. Too many factors are involved, among them students’ socioeconomic status, prior knowledge and parental involvement.
If merit pay were initiated and the results proved unfair, more and more teachers would quit the profession. The current system of basing pay on length of service rewards teachers for their dedication. This is the only fair way to pay teachers.
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On 3/15/05 at 9:36 p.m.
Korman wrote:
While student achievement is affected by many things, teachers are ultimately responsible for what happens in their classrooms. Good teaching can help all students achieve at high levels regardless of family background. Service and dedication measured only in years is not always a reflection of skillful teaching. Performance-based pay would help ensure that all children in all schools benefit from the best practices. That’s fair.
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On 3/16/05 at 2:29 p.m.
Redfern wrote:
Good teaching occurs in classrooms like ours every day because teachers work diligently despite low salaries and budget cuts to our classrooms. California currently ranks 44th in state funding per student. Our kids cannot afford to lose any more money to test writers or to potential administrative costs associated with a merit-pay system. Merit pay is nothing more than an expensive risk with the potential for disastrous results for students and teachers.
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On 3/16/05 at 9:07 p.m.
Korman wrote:
More than any other resource, we need good people doing good work in every classroom. It’s obvious that our current teacher salary system is neither attracting enough new talent nor retaining exceptional individuals, particularly in the most challenging schools. California can be a leader in educational innovation by refining and streamlining assessment tools that would ensure that every teacher in every classroom is teaching every student well. We can then invite a new generation of teachers to a profession that rewards hard work, talent and excellence, not just years served and credits earned.
