Merit Pay for Teachers

[Holden]

Sounds exactly like the argument that there should be no grades.

And regarding this:

Have you ever been to 109th street and 10th avenue (actually named Amsterdam Avenue above 59th street)?  It is a lovely neighborhood full of cultured individuals, although most buildings are not 64 stories tall.  You seem to have a strong longing for the good old days, which weren't always as good as we remember.

So, Nut-Job, do you work in education? What is your experience with classrooms (apart from having been a student in one your self)? What specific criteria would you suggest to measure teacher performance? You've given generalised ones which I've heard many times before but any job where performance is measured usually has set benchmarks, specific standards and specific requirements. So, what would yours be?

You've yet to answer this, or do I just label you as a troll?

[Cato]

So, Nut-Job, do you work in education? What is your experience with classrooms (apart from having been a student in one your self)? What specific criteria would you suggest to measure teacher performance? You've given generalised ones which I've heard many times before but any job where performance is measured usually has set benchmarks, specific standards and specific requirements. So, what would yours be?

You've yet to answer this, or do I just label you as a troll?

Thank you, Holden!

Nut-Job: As a History teacher I have always told my students that the "good old days" are right now!  We live at the best time in History, despite our worries and obsessions.

I am quite in favor of grades, but sensible ones, not based on numbers, not based on A-B-C-D multiple-guess tests.  Letters are good enough to grade written essays or short answers. 

[Superhorn]

  Those who say that there is no fair way of determining"merit" among teachers are absolutely right. There is absolutely no fair and objective way of determining this.
  If implemented, a teacher whom the principal disliked might be denied it, and one the princoipal did like might get it.
In addition,it would generate an enormous amount of resentment among teachers who felt they deserved it but did not get it, probably causing some fine and dedicated teachers to abandon teaching in bitter resentment.
  Test results do not not indicate merit in a teacher. The best teachers are those who teach effectively and stimulate their student's minds instead of subjecting them to drudgery.
And I repeat, grades for students do not necessarily  indicate merit either,
or the lack of it . They are often highly arbitrary and subjective,except in courses where there are cut and dried right or wrong answers.
  Not only does grade inflation exist, but the exact opposite, where students work really hard but don't get high grades because of poor judgement on the part of either public school teachers or university professors.

[nut-job]

So, Nut-Job, do you work in education? What is your experience with classrooms (apart from having been a student in one your self)? What specific criteria would you suggest to measure teacher performance? You've given generalised ones which I've heard many times before but any job where performance is measured usually has set benchmarks, specific standards and specific requirements. So, what would yours be?

You've yet to answer this, or do I just label you as a troll?

I am a faculty member in a major public university in the US.  Although tenured faculty cannot be dislodged from their positions, teaching, research and other "service" activities are evaluated yearly for all faculty and life is made more pleasant and prosperous for those who are rated well.  Ratings are interpreted by the department chairs, the deans, and the provosts.  All of the dire consequences that you describe when teachers are evaluated mysteriously fail to occur here.  My experience with primary education mainly derives from my exposure to freshmen.  Some are brilliant, but many, despite the fact that this is a relatively selective institution, can't formulate a sentence that makes sense, let alone a paragraph.

[Cato]

I am a faculty member in a major public university in the US.  Although tenured faculty cannot be dislodged from their positions, teaching, research and other "service" activities are evaluated yearly for all faculty and life is made more pleasant and prosperous for those who are rated well.  Ratings are interpreted by the department chairs, the deans, and the provosts.  All of the dire consequences that you describe when teachers are evaluated mysteriously fail to occur here.  My experience with primary education mainly derives from my exposure to freshmen.  Some are brilliant, but many, despite the fact that this is a relatively selective institution, can't formulate a sentence that makes sense, let alone a paragraph.

My emphases above.

One sees here, even given "Nut-Job's" rhetorical exaggeration, the result of what I have complained about: grading systems which make no sense and which are inflated.  How else are such freshmen allowed into a "relatively selective university" ? 

Boot them out!  Send them back to junior-high night school for rehab!  Pretending that they are literate, that they wrote the research papers that they actually bought at ResearchPapers.com, that they deserve anything less than a proctological examination with a size 12 shoe, and that their parents should not be displayed on the green in stocks, is just downright dishonest!   0:)

[nut-job]

My emphases above.

One sees here, even given "Nut-Job's" rhetorical exaggeration, the result of what I have complained about: grading systems which make no sense and which are inflated.  How else are such freshmen allowed into a "relatively selective university" ? 

Boot them out!  Send them back to junior-high night school for rehab!  Pretending that they are literate, that they wrote the research papers that they actually bought at ResearchPapers.com, that they deserve anything less than a proctological examination with a size 12 shoe, and that their parents should not be displayed on the green in stocks, is just downright dishonest!   0:)

I do not find persuasive the argument that compensating teachers based on performance would make any of these problems worse.   

Lord, on our own board we have a poster who only interrupts his misogynistic ramblings to announce that he is composing a symphony based on the music he hears when he plays his video game.  When the global worming alarmists warn that the world is coming to an end, I sometimes wonder if it will happen soon enough.

[Holden]

I am a faculty member in a major public university in the US.  Although tenured faculty cannot be dislodged from their positions, teaching, research and other "service" activities are evaluated yearly for all faculty and life is made more pleasant and prosperous for those who are rated well.  Ratings are interpreted by the department chairs, the deans, and the provosts.  All of the dire consequences that you describe when teachers are evaluated mysteriously fail to occur here.  My experience with primary education mainly derives from my exposure to freshmen.  Some are brilliant, but many, despite the fact that this is a relatively selective institution, can't formulate a sentence that makes sense, let alone a paragraph.

Of course they don't appear, you operate insuch a cloistered atmosphere that the control is totally yours. Are you rated on the number of students who pass your courses? Who decides who passes your course work(rhetorical)? Is there a national or state standard that your students are measured against? You guys are comfortably ensconced in your own private little academic bywater, where you set your own rules, benchmarks, guidelines, coursework, examinations, assessment items, etc.

So, using this as the only pedagogical system you apparently have any experience of, would you happily allow each primary school and their staff to do exactly that? I can certainly see it working apart from the fact that a higher authority sets external assessment items to measure each student against each other from competing educational institutions. Now if you university teachers would be happy to endure the same then your argument would have some validity. But no, I can hear the response now. "How on earth could you compare us with Harvard/Yale/Old Miss/? Our course work is so specific to us, it's not possible. Our students are different, they've come to us from (insert high school), not (insert high school). No, old chap, it simply wouldn't work."

In short - while you are really championing a collaborative approach in your own work place you want to turn  elementary and secondary education into an arena where school is pitted against school, teacher against teacher and child against child.  

Finally, would I be correct in surmising that your area of study isn't education? Can I also suggest that you begin your education on public schooling by do some serious reading on the subject - start with Alfie Kohn.

http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.html

He has some interesting things to say about education in the US. While I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, a lot of it makes sense.

also

http://k6educators.about.com/od/assessmentandtesting/a/meritypay_2.htm

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2008/01/merit-pay-hurts-teachers-staff-and.html

http://karlfrankjr.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/the-problem-with-merit-pay-for-classroom-teachers-the-real-truth/

These examine the pros and cons of the merit pay proposal.

Finally, as you've indicated some of your credentials I'll post mine.

I started teaching in elementary schools in 1976 after completing a 4 year degree in primary education, majoring in physical education. I taught elementary grades in all curriculum areas (as primary school teachers are requred to do) in public sector schools. Since then I have been a deputy principal and principal of a 350 student public sector primary school. However, as the administrative load took its toll I returned full time to my passion, the classroom and I now teach Health and Physical Education at a K -12 private college in Queensland, Australia. I currently work with students as young as 4 years old up to 14 years of age. This college is an autonomus body with its own curriculum, assessment schemes and hierachical system. Yes, we are subjected to both state and federal testing regimes but we prepare our students for this while not losing sight of our pedagogical ethos. Staff are encouraged to work collaboratively and generally do. The college sets high standards for both its staff and students and this is enough to ensure a high quality of education for all students.

[nut-job]

Of course they don't appear, you operate insuch a cloistered atmosphere that the control is totally yours. Are you rated on the number of students who pass your courses? Who decides who passes your course work(rhetorical)? Is there a national or state standard that your students are measured against? You guys are comfortably ensconced in your own private little academic bywater, where you set your own rules, benchmarks, guidelines, coursework, examinations, assessment items, etc.

So, using this as the only pedagogical system you apparently have any experience of, would you happily allow each primary school and their staff to do exactly that? I can certainly see it working apart from the fact that a higher authority sets external assessment items to measure each student against each other from competing educational institutions. Now if you university teachers would be happy to endure the same then your argument would have some validity. But no, I can hear the response now. "How on earth could you compare us with Harvard/Yale/Old Miss/? Our course work is so specific to us, it's not possible. Our students are different, they've come to us from (insert high school), not (insert high school). No, old chap, it simply wouldn't work."

In short - while you are really championing a collaborative approach in your own work place you want to turn  elementary and secondary education into an arena where school is pitted against school, teacher against teacher and child against child.  

In the first place, our institution is hardly cloistered, it is dependent on the state legislature for all manner of funding and our self evaluations are the main resource our president draws on when he goes to the capital to beg for money.   I am rated on how well students I supervise do when they graduate (mainly applies to graduate students) and by a survey that is filled out by my students.   I am also rated based on how many students I teach, supervise, mentor, and how many University committees and community service activities I am involved in.  The administration understands the foibles of students, so being too popular with the students is just as problematic as being rated too unpopular. 

In the second place, you seem to insist that I am advocating something that I am not.  I never advocated comparing performance across different institutions.  I am just advocating that within a given school a teacher who rates dismally compared to peers at the same institution in roughly comparable curriculum should get a lousy raise that year.  I fail to see how the system I describe would be "collaborative" in my work place, but would "pit teacher against teacher" when I suggest the same thing in a primary school.

[DavidRoss]

Re. the poll question: Yes--under some circumstances.  I doubt there's any way to determine "merit" that the teachers' union won't undermine.  I don't doubt that shifting even more control of limited resources to an authoritarian central government will continue to prove as counterproductive as it has in the past.  It's too bad that our new Secretary of Education doesn't understand the virtues of pluralism.

[jfmac]

In the first place, our institution is hardly cloistered, it is dependent on the state legislature for all manner of funding and our self evaluations are the main resource our president draws on when he goes to the capital to beg for money.   I am rated on how well students I supervise do when they graduate so your salary is based on THEIR earning as employees. Jesus.(mainly applies to graduate students) and by a survey that is filled out by my studentsI can assure you that if my salary is determined by a SURVEY, I'm going to make sure my students  LOVE me..   I am also rated based on how many students I teach, supervise, mentor, and how many University committees and community service activities I am involved inIn other words convince as many grad students as you can to take YOUR classes, make it worth thier while to stay with you, tell them what they want to hear, and kiss ass with the administration. .  The administration understands the foibles of students, so being too popular with the students is just as problematic as being rated too unpopular. 

In the second place, you seem to insist that I am advocating something that I am not.  I never advocated comparing performance across different institutions.  I am just advocating that within a given school a teacher who rates dismally compared to peers at the same institution in roughly comparable curriculum should get a lousy raise that year.  I fail to see how the system I describe would be "collaborative" in my work place, but would "pit teacher against teacher" when I suggest the same thing in a primary school.

I can't believe you even enter this argument seriously.

[jfmac]

And BTW YOU'RE the one who said your Uni was "highly selective". If they are accepting students who can't write well then it sounds as if the UNI is easing their selective standards.

[Bogey]

And BTW YOU'RE the one who said your Uni was "highly selective". If they are accepting students who can't write well then it sounds as if the UNI is easing their selective standards.

I had the same conversation with a friend of ours that is a professor at UCLA.  He was complaining how students were not coming equipped for the courses set in front of them as freshmen.  My simple question was, "Why did you admit them?  And if they were not meeting standards after you had them, why did you let them stay?"  Unlike public schools, can't you ask them to leave?

Never did get an answer.  We got too busy eating some fabulous cheese he had brought out. 

[jfmac]

Not real sure how I feel about merit pay. As a band director, I won't get any off it anyway. NEA, AFT are pretty dead set against it, Demos seems to dislike it, GOP seems to like it. As a conservative voter, (but not a GOP wag) I'm kinda looking from afar and waiting to make a judgment. Off hand I would say I don't care for it. I think there are too many vague issues involved.

I would point out that when people compare the US with other countries (Japan for example) as far a education there are some issues. In the US we TRY to educate EVERY student who walks through the doors. Not all countries do this. Many countries at about grade 8 or so separate students into college bound and trade school bound. If you compare ALL US students to say 50% of some other countries students it does seem to look as though the US is not doing as good a job. It's comparing ALL of our student to the top 50% of theirs. Apples and oranges. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me, but show data. Also most countries do not have a problem with single parent families like we do,especially where so many are single parent mothers with no father figure in sight. If you think it doesn't matter do some research.