Saturday 24 October 2009

Merit Pay

Last week Green Dot Charter Schools held an evening information session to share proposed changes with their teachers. These changes will be implemented when they receive a portion of $60 million from the Gates Foundation. (The money is not secured, but Green Dot is in the final stages of the proposal. The actual announcement will come mid November.) The Gates money is contingent on Green Dot (and the other charter schools in the proposal) implementing certain polices, including merit pay for teachers.

Merit pay ties teacher pay to student performance (how they do on standardized tests). Basically, students are tested at the beginning of the year and again at the end of the year. Teacher salary is determined by these test scores. This "alternative compensation" can add 3 to 22 thousand dollars to a teacher's base pay. The extra pay comes with a controversial mandatory extra month of service each year and added responsibilities like coaching and mentoring other teachers. Furthermore, these teachers will be placed in the "highest need classrooms." No teacher will be able to rest on his or her laurels. Teachers that do not consistently raise test scores will be "counseled to leave" (fired).

When the program begins, all teachers will spend two years in the residency and entry level (no merit pay) stages. After two years, standardized test scores are analyzed and the teachers with the most desirable test scores will quickly move through the ranks-and the pay scale.

The crowd of (mostly young) teachers seemed apprehensive. A heated question and answer time left us with more questions than answers. Many questions stumped the speaker including: what about art, PE, or Chicano/African American studies teachers (there are no standardized tests for these subjects)? What about Special Education teachers? (Can a Special Education students be expected to improve as much as other students?) What about those teachers who are content where they are-the ones who don't want to become master teachers or coaches?

The merit pay system is flawed, but the current system (based on years of teaching and degrees) is far worse. I have met teachers making $100,000 based on their ability to stay at one school district for a decade and getting extra degrees from online universities. Neither of these things guarantee a better teacher. These teachers know how to jump through hoops to move up the pay scale, but they have no incentive to increase their effectiveness in the classroom.

Merit pay may be controversial, but it has powerful allies-President Obama and Arne Duncan. But, are they more powerful than teacher unions (the biggest opposition to merit pay)?