Merit Pay Finale

Watching the above video of President Obama (then on the campaign trail) brings up some other interesting points about Merit Pay. He opposes the idea as it is traditionally thought of: bonuses for teachers whose students provided high standardized test scores. He is for Merit Pay if there is a more integrated approach to the system of performance evaluation (such as some methods described in earlier posts). Things like degrees earned, extra education sought, and incentives for teachers who work in undesirable areas (inner city or rural outlying areas)- all this in addition to raises for teachers across the board and the creation of a “career ladder” for teachers to work towards.

I think his ideas are great, his execution may be lacking what with the state of the country he inherited in such disrepair- so many things seemingly far worse than we thought. I hope that one day some changes can be made and possibly a fair Merit Pay system implemented. There are inequities that need to be addressed, for example a scenario that involved an extraordinary teacher being paid the same as a lazy one, simply because they have equal seniority.

Merit Pay Part 3

The Phi Delta Kappan reported on an initiative begun in 2001 to reform inner-city Chattanooga schools. The plan was multi-faceted (it included the firing of every teacher in the district- who were then asked to reapply, mentoring programs to train teachers, additional staff to support instruction, and more collaborative leadership in each school, among many other things) but became mostly known for introducing financial incentives to raise the quality of the teachers in the district and the therefore the quality of the education received by the students.

Performance bonuses of up to $5,000 for teachers who showed student gains were a major part of the program in addition to free graduate school and mortgage loans. This reform project was a rousing success: raising seven out of eight schools from an F to an A in the span of five years. It is an example often cited by Merit Pay proponents, but the bonuses were just one part of drastic large-scale reform that resulted in the creation of a supportive and professional environment and teachers feeling more respected in their communities.

Large scale overhauls like this one aside, there have been other instances noted where a merit pay initiative has resulted in little more than fraud. These include teachers focusing almost exclusively on one test, educators changing test scores, or assisting students with the answers. There is also evidence of schools tactical classification of special education and ELL students as well as misuses of punitive procedures to guarantee student absenteeism on test day (suspension, etc.).

It's worth noting that each scenario I researched returned positive results, albeit alongside a bevy of caveats. I think that a merit pay system could work, as long as it was designed with teacher input and not just a new set of criteria thrust upon them. It seems probable that confident teachers who already strive for excellence would be in favor of salary or bonuses based on performance if they could only ensure unbiased and fair evaluation of their abilities and effectiveness.

(Source: Phi Beta Kappan)

Merit Pay Part 2

For some the argument for Merit Pay can be boiled down to an age-old aphorism: “You get what you pay for.” This is based on the natural assumption that a person would work harder if their paycheck depended on it. Research finds an alternative school in Michigan whose teachers were tasked with raising course completion rates in order to receive bonuses. When their results are held up against another comparable school, it’s obvious they succeeded. However when you look at the total picture you begin to see that courses were completed, but the GPAs dropped and student pass rates fell. Admittedly a more comprehensive Merit Pay plan would have encompassed more performance indicators, but it’s worth noting the goal attached to bonuses was indeed met.

The other problems with Merit Pay are evaluation and who decides the worth of each teacher. Thomas Toch attested to why relying on test scores is not the answer, noting that “less than fifty percent of public school teachers teach the subjects or grades levels in which students are tested.” He also relates that many teachers are unwilling to have standardized test scores play any role in their possible Merit Pay. Many teachers are not opposed to a more comprehensive evaluation method however, one that incorporates multiple evaluators that is based on multiple indicators such as ability to plan, teach, test, manage, and motivate.

These journal articles illustrate several points. First: upon many outward appearances it seems that merit pay works. But often when you look closer, as in the first paragraph, you can often find a flaw. Also, when taking into account just how many teachers are left out of the standardized test model of assessment, you realize just how faulty that method would be. This is of course in addition to the variety of factors often sited when educators list the weaknesses of standardized tests: possible anxieties, student unwillingness, a variety of biases, etc.

(Sources: Phi Beta Kappan, and Peabody Journal of Education)

Merit Pay

The issue I'm going to research is Merit Pay. I think it is a really interesting development in deciding a teacher's salary. It makes sense to pay a teacher "what they're worth"- the way a salesman is paid depending upon how many pairs of sneakers he sells.

BUT I think there has to be a careful and thoughtful way of coming to a dollar amount. If "they" judge a teacher's performance solely on the outcomes of a standardized test- I think it would be a grievous error in judgement. So many teachers couldn't even be assessed that way- art teachers, music teachers (already low on the proverbial totem pole) and special ed teachers would be a few left in the lurch. Even the beloved football coaches and gym teachers would find themselves in need of some performance evaluation.

I hope to learn what ways performance is assessed and if there are true benefits to be had by using a merit pay system.

Website Continued

My class website can found by clicking HERE. It's coming along pretty well. I think one way that way of getting kids to come back to the website would be to make a page on it that was sort of a safe place that stored educational links.

Some of the links could be drills or helpful games associted with what you're learning in the class (such as the one illustrated in the video above). Another way I thought of would be to have an extra credit question hidden on the page somewhere. This would encourage the students to come back and look for it each week, month, or grading period.

As far as teaching with technology vs. an "old-fashioned book learning" way- there's really no contest. Today's kids are growing up playing games on their manny's iphone, setting their DVRs to record "Spongebob," and uploading pictures from their digital cameras to their myspace page. To build a class around nothing but a book and a chalk board would be ludicrous.

I actually have thought this several times while in school here. I notice my education classes telling me something- "gain your student's interest" for example- and I see teachers teaching in a completely irrelevant way, almost as though the class weren't even in the room. (Mr. Paul O'Farrell's 'Intro to Geography' course for example). For myself, I have to wonder-not just technologically speaking- but when you teach a class, do you actually consider that there are real live people in the room? I think that I would- but some obviously do not.

For my classes (the one's I will teach in the hopefully not-too-distant future) I plan to integrate new ideas as well as new vessels of learning to help my students become involved and invested in the material.

Portaportal

For me, the most informative aspect of the Portaportal assignment was the actual reasearch involved in finding websites to list on our own portaportal.

It really opened my eyes to the fact that there are so many resources out there for teachers to use. I think that's great, because although I prefer to create my own lesson plans and materials- if there were a time when I was stuck with a case of "writer's block" or something similar- there would be so many places I could turn for inspiration.

I think it is also cool that we could give people access to our portaportal and they could find it and make use of the tools we've gathered- and of course vice versa. The internet being so wide- it would be great to utilize the work, the sifting through, that a colleague had already done.

My portaportal is HERE.

Class Website

Our current assignment is to create a faux class website. So far I do not exactly know how the website can actually be used inside the classroom. I do think it could be a valuable tool outside for parents and students.

One thing that could effect learning would be if you could upload homework onto your site, in case a child was out for the day and needed to know what happened. That does sound like a great deal of work for the teacher though, not only teaching during the day, planning lessons at all hours, but also playing the role of web-master.

Of course, many of the pages on the site could be left unchanged for longer periods (the teaching philosophy, the "about me," or maybe the home page). Many would need to be constantly updated though, if you were going to keep it very current with daily happenings and homeowrk and such.

I know some people are going so far as to have a school lunch calendar on their page. I know this would address the concerns of Milhouse's father Kirk from "The Simpsons" who remarked, "I don't like the idea of Milhouse having two spaghetti meals in one day." This way parents could plan accordingly.

Older grades could really benefit from the idea though. For instance my mother is an eighth grade english teacher and she's doing a website for her class. I think she plans to include rubrics and information about specific projects/assigments that she repeats with each class- so she could leave the initial information essentially unchanged and update the due dates as needed.