Performance Based Pay: Good or Bad

1. Performance Based Pay: Good or Bad Jean Benson, Maria Ekeren, Robert Flint & Danelle Keninger

2. Origins of Merit Pay • Was born in England around 1710 • Teacher salaries were based on student test scores

3. Merit Pay In America • In 1969, President Nixon championed a plan called performance-contracting • This plan called for teacher pay to be based on student performance • The plan was eventually declared a failure • The mid-1970-80’s was the merit pay decade

4. Performance Contracting – Why did it fail? • Failed to produce expected gains • Generated damaging educational practices such as falsifying school records and teaching to the test to boost test scores • Inability of teachers to use innovative teaching strategies

5. Why offer Incentive Pay? • Federal Government is supporting Merit pay by offering grant monies through the US Department of Education teacher incentive fund • Other plans have been approved by voters willing to use tax money to fund initiatives

6. Goals of Merit Pay • The goal is to attract high quality teachers • Teachers should be rewarded for the success of their pupils • If students are learning at an above proficient level, their teachers should be rewarded

7. Pros of Merit Pay • Current pay scale encourages prolific course taking amongst teachers, diverting energy away from enhancing teaching practices • Current pay typically provides few incentives for focusing course work on developing the knowledge and skills needed to enhance performance

8. Pros of Merit Pay • Current system discourages promising young teachers from remaining in the teaching force • It takes years of experience and advanced degrees to move up in the pay scale • Raises the bar of professionalism in teaching

9. Pros of Merit Pay • Rewarding quality work is a means to change the paradigm so that the best and the brightest are eager to teach • Principals must have the authority to make hiring and firing decisions • Raising pay levels are key parts of responding to the school-improvement challenge

10. Pros of Merit Pay • Merit pay appears to be working in North Carolina, Dallas and Denver schools

11. Cons to Merit Pay • Teachers are required to take coursework for renewal certification • Standards should be established to award teachers for classes taken in their subject areas

12. Cons to Merit Pay • Even if teachers would like larger salaries, they typically aren’t money-driven • Studies have shown that merit pay doesn’t have a positive effect on teachers’ classroom work, but instead can have a divisive and damaging effect on a school’s teaching community

13. Cons to Merit Pay • Rewarding teachers based on team leadership and mentorship is a form of compensation • Administrative evaluations will be scrutinized by teachers not receiving merit pay • A 2000 Public Agenda survey noted that compensations other than money are “significantly more important to most teachers”

14. There is no “I” in TEAM • Display loyalty • Be generous • Avoid internal politics • Value interdependence over independence

15. Merit Pay won’t work • Schools need to remain a community • Collaborative effort that takes 13 years to complete • All teachers, in all subject areas, are important to students

16. What is “our” ultimate goal?