A PPTA perspective on performance pay

1. A PPTA perspective on performance pay Presentation to NASDAP Executive 25 May 2012

2. Our policy • That PPTA rejects the idea and practice of discriminatory performance pay for teachers. (May 2012) • discriminatory is crucial. Not opposed to performance based pay per se.

4. Context – What the government is doing • Freeze on staffing • Charter schools • Teach First NZ • Review of Teachers Council • Privatisation of PLD • Principals possibly under SSA • Performance pay

5. International context– “the wrong drivers” Darling-Hammond • Frequent testing • Entrepreneurial school models • Alternative routes into teaching • Competition amongst teachers Fullan • Accountability • Individual teacher and leadership quality • Technology • Fragmented strategies

6. We already have performance based pay • for qualifications. • for extra duties or responsibilities. • for meeting standards.

7. OECD report “Outstanding teacher performance linked to: • decisions on base salary • decisions on annual supplemental payments • decisions on incidental supplemental payment” OECD says we have this in NZ already

8. Mechanisms for performance pay • Competency/skill demonstration based on standards • Completing professional learning courses (or qualifications) • Classroom performance based on observation • School level student achievement goals being achieved • Individual teacher student achievement goals being achieved • Student/parent evaluations of the teacher • Improvements in student achievement • Most often what’s meant is the last – a link between pay and quantifiable student outcomes.

9. 8 Reasons – Levin • Few people paid on the basis of measured outcomes. • No other profession paid for measured client outcomes. • Most teachers oppose such schemes. • Pay based on student achievement is likely to lead to displacement of other important education goals. • No consensus on what the measures of merit should be. • Measurement of merit in teaching involves a degree of error. • Details of merit pay schemes vary widely, yet these details have great impact on their effects. • Merit pay schemes in education have a long record of failure.

10. Levin – points 1 & 2 • “…incentive pay systems …are almost never based exclusively or even primarily on quantitative output measurement for professionals. …Business management literature nowadays is filled with warning about incentives that rely heavily on quantitative rather than qualitative measures. For business organizations, quantitative performance measures are used warily, and never exclusively.” (Ellerson)

11. Levin - point 4 • Donald T. Campbell ’s ‘law’ of performance measurement: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” • Unintended consequences on curriculum, assessment and staffing

12. Levin- Points 5-8 • Parata says “Typically, you get a response that it's not possible to design something like that, because this is so difficult.” (March 2012) • OECD report – No relationship between performance pay and student achievement

13. Other challenges – Recruiting leaders • Parata: “We need[…] to look at the structure of the career pathways so that excellent teachers aren't forced to become leaders or managers - in other words taken out of the classroom situation - because that would be the only way they could get a pay increase.” • Do we want mediocre teachers becoming leaders? • Leaders – socialising good practice

14. Other challenges – ‘Bad teachers’ • Parata: “Sort the wheat from the chaff.” • Keep ‘bad teachers’ but pay them less • Who would want their children in these classes?

15. Other challenges – funding it • Freeze on staffing funding • Who will be able to access it? • Most likely – competitive and limited

16. What does motivate teachers? • Dan Pink • Autonomy • Mastery • Purpose • Alfie Kohn “Theory, research, and practice all suggest that carrots (merit pay for teachers, cash rewards for students) and sticks (public shaming, threatening to close down schools that need help) are as ineffective as they are insulting.”

17. Teacher evaluation –it’s important • Professional standards and Registered Teacher Criteria – broad and aspirational, not narrow descriptors • PPTA’s Quality Teaching Taskforce

18. Some good signs • Parata: Government developing an, “…evaluation system that would have "integrity and regard" and capture all of the different dimensions of quality teaching.” (March, 2012) • "We'll be keen to see how we can get great participation to identify what are the dimensions of quality, what sort of components should be part of an appraisal system, how do we ensure that it isn't just student outcomes” (May, 2012)

19. Some possibilities • Post-graduate professional learning qualifications • Practice and theory based • Run by a national Centre for Secondary Teacher Excellence • Career pathways – ‘Specialist practitioner’ • Capacity to specialise in aspects of teaching practice, similar to SCT • Responsibility for socialising good practice

20. To summarise • No problem with performance based pay if it is • Fair • Transparent criteria • Encourages good practice • Developed collaboratively • Funded properly

21. The right drivers Fullan • Learning- instruction- assessment nexus • Social capital to build profession • Pedagogy matches technology • Systemic synergy Darling-Hammond • Equitable, needs based funding • Teacher pay • High quality PLD • Time for collaboration • Curriculum of critical problem solving and thinking • Test students rarely and carefully

22. References • Ellerson, N. 2009. Exploring the Possibility and Potential for Pay for Performance in America’s Public Schools Available from:http://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/_files/PFPFinal.pdf • Fullan, M. 2011. Choosing the wrong drivers for whole system reform Available from http://www.michaelfullan.ca/home_articles/SeminarPaper204.pdf • Levin, B. 2010. Eight reasons merit pay for teachers is a bad idea. Available from http://www.etfo.ca/IssuesinEducation/MeritPay/Documents/MeritPay.pdf • Kohn, A. 2003. The folly of merit pay. Available from http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/meritpay.htm • OECD, PISA in focus 16, 2012. Does performance-based pay improve teaching? Available from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/33/16/50328990.pdf • Pink, D. RSA Animate Video Series, Drive, the surprising truth about what motivates us, Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc • Darling-Hammond, L. Introduction in Tucker, M. 2011. Surpassing Shanghai.