More on merit
Judging from several of the comments on my last post, the ideas that undergird merit pay for teachers are not lost only on NPR reporters. Corey, for example, writes:
Does LeBron play better when he’s paid $20 million than if he, and everybody else, were paid $1 million? That’s a legitimate question. And different from asking if it’s fair to pay LeBron the same as everybody else when he’s clearly better.
It’s also a different question than asking whether the players currently earning $1 million will work harder to try and earn as much as LeBron than they would if they had no potential for salary increases.
What is missing here is an understanding of, inter alia, the job market. Merit pay is engineered not only to develop better teachers by encouraging those already in the field to work harder, but it’s also—and maybe more so—designed to attract talented people to classrooms and keep the best teachers from leaving and pursuing other careers. So, yes, it is incredibly foolish to ask, as Larry Abramson did, “Is performance pay working if it just rewards teachers who are already doing a good job?”
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July 17th, 2008 at 11:41 am
With merit pay, what is your proposal for determining who the better teachers are?
Higher test scores? Higher Passing rates? What about the situation where 1 teacher just has a better crop of students? Do you take into account student evaluations?
With professional athletes, there are set metrics by which to measure performance. How would you make that system work with teachers?
July 17th, 2008 at 11:55 am
This is where the labor model falls down. Should LeBron James be entitled to a proportionate share of the bucks that he earns for his owners? Do his owners earn more when he is there as opposed to another player? These are legitimate questions for labor to ask in the private market. They might also ask if labor collectively is better served when they stick together as opposed to everyone bargaining for themselves. Pro basketball—I believe—is not heavily unionized—at least not in the sense that American industry has been. The incentives for unionization kind of fall off when everyone is in the six digit figures. The losers just don’t lose big enough—and the winners win big time.
Education, and teachers, have their own unique slant. Teachers do not produce capital for an owner, per se. In their case there are multiple stakeholders—individual students and parents certainly, but also the community or society of which they themselves are a part, who reap the benefits of their labor. It is hard to imagine a truly “merit based” system that motivates the things that stand to benefit us more as a society. There certainly are, however, legitimate things that can and ought to be motivated by pay-based incentives. Taking on the toughest cases, for instance. (successfully) Teaching students who have fewer outside resources supporting them ought to be more highly compensated—or made attractive in other ways (smaller class sized, fewer classes per day) that are likely to improve outcomes. Teachers who work with student with disabilities should be more highly educated and remunerated than those who do not. Effective teachers ought to be more highly compensated for a willingness to share their wealth of knowledge (reviewing and critiquing lessons and practice, mentoring new teachers, developing curriculum, etc). These kinds of positions ought to be awarded based on merit—rather than seniority. Pay scales ought to recognize meaningful experience garnered in other areas in order to encourage mature, second career entries into the field.
These are ways that increased pay can motivate things that need to happen in order to improve education.
July 17th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
It’s not a foolish question unless you assume you know the answer.
If, hypothetically, basketball players were just as good regardless of what they were paid then paying LeBron 20x more than somebody else would be more fair than paying him the same, but it wouldn’t make your team any better.
In order to brand the question foolish we have to assume that people are rational actors and motivated by self-interest and that the opportunity to earn more money by playing better basketball results in them playing better basketball. It’s an entirely reasonable assumption, one that is supported by economic theory, but just b/c an assumption is reasonable doesn’t mean it’s correct.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Merit pay is engineered not only to develop better teachers by encouraging those already in the field to work harder, but it’s also—and maybe more so—designed to attract talented people to classrooms and keep the best teachers from leaving and pursuing other careers.
I see a devil in those details.
What would the cost basis of merit pay need to be to make teaching more attractive to high achievers? By what would merit be judged? If the theme was “Successful teachers can earn $100,000 a year!” you’ll turn heads and attract attention, sure, but what’s the steak behind the sizzle?
July 18th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Ryan, you’re exactly right. As a mid-career switcher to teaching, I had the luxury of being able to afford stepping back in pay, but it would not have been workable if I started my career in education. Here’s a thought: I wonder what TFA corps members as a control group are earning 5 and 10 years after leaving the classroom. Whatever the figure is, that’s probably about what it would take to attract and retain high achievers to teaching. My personal experience makes me somewhat skeptical about merit pay. I came to teaching out of conviction, not a desire for enrichment. Indeed, merit pay, if I took it seriously, would probably have a negative impact on my teaching, since it would encourage me to focus exclusively on test prep, rather than closing my classroom door and giving my kids the rich curriculum I felt they needed.