Teacher of the Year: Performance pay raises heart rates
As the 2011 Georgia Teacher of the Year, Pam Williams is working with DOE, traveling the state talking about key issues with her classroom peers, including performance pay. She just spoke at the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education media conference I am attending today.
Under Georgia’s Race to the Top Grant, the 26 participating school districts will roll out a performance pay system that may go statewide at the end of the four-year grant, depending on the will of the General Assembly.
So, how do teachers feel about performance pay?
“If you put a heart rate monitor on them when we talked about it, you would see it soar,” said Williams.
But Williams says many teachers are interested, including her, because they see performance pay validating their hard work day after day and helping to make their field more professional. At this point, performance pay would be a matter of choice for teachers already in the classroom. Veteran teachers could choose to continue under the present salary system that rewards seniority and degrees rather than moving to one that rewards results.
“If this does become a statewide movement at the end of Race to the Top, and we do enter merit pay, if I sign on as a 20-year veteran with a master’s and an education specialist degree, I will be giving up my pay for those two degrees with the possibility that I could make more through the performance model. That is a could. This is one of those bird in the hand versus bird in the bush. I know what I make right now versus what I could make. Do I feel comfortable that I could possibly achieve it? Yes, my students do very well.” said Williams, an economics teacher from Appling County High School
But she says teachers have concerns about the kinks in the performance pay plan and about how non-tested areas, such as music and art, would be addressed. Or how special ed teachers would be judged.
And teachers don’t want their performance to come down to one test on one day, she said.
Williams cited another scenario of concern with measuring student growth through testing and then paying teachers accordingly. If you have a third-grade superstar teacher who squeezed all she could out of her students, there may be little new ground left for the fourth grade teacher. “The third-grade teacher moved them by leaps and bounds,” she said. “The fourth-grade teacher may not be able to push them much more.”
While she aims to get every student to the highest levels, Williams cautioned, “We can’t set one recipe for success for every child. If we go in with the idea that all students will rise to the same measure, then we are setting up an opportunity for great disappointment.”
But Williams said that performance pay could rouse some teachers out of complacency, the same way that the CRCT did when it was first introduced. The CRCT, she says, forced a few teachers she knew to ask, “Did I teach history this year or did I have Cinema 7 in my room?”
–By Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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234 comments Add your comment
Happy Teacher
January 14th, 2011
2:41 pm
I also think we have to consider how programs such as performance pay could draw more highly qualified candidates into the profession, which I consider to be the main appeal of any performance pay program. So many people want to be teachers because it is such a noble, rewarding profession, but they look at that step-scale and don’t want to wait 10-15 years to make a decent living, or to put in the distracting effort to get an advanced degree (or two).
Tonya C.
January 14th, 2011
2:52 pm
Where is this money going to come from? The state and the nation are struggling to honor the current contracts they have written. How will they do it if Performance Pay is involved? Some of these suburban schools are already Blue Ribbon and whatnot…could they actually afford the compensation that superstar teachers deserve?
I’m in private industry, and I’ve seen stuff like this fail before. In the hands of sometimey politicians, this could be an abysmal disaster. As far as the advanced degrees, private sector is becoming based on the same element. There will still be a cap on earnings without further education, so how different will things really be?
Fericita
January 14th, 2011
2:57 pm
So, how do teachers feel about performance pay?
Personally, I want to see the nuts and bolts before committing. I also want to know if merit pay is being considered as a cost saving measure. If so, will only a certain number of teachers ever be allowed to reach that top tier?
Fericita
January 14th, 2011
3:00 pm
Happy Teacher, I also question whether this will draw highly qualified people. I know being highly qualified and having an advanced degree is not necessarily the same thing, but I think they run together more often than not. And right now, I’m questioning how smart I was to get my master’s degree at Teacher College if my degree won’t be reflected in my pay.
Happy Teacher
January 14th, 2011
3:08 pm
@Ferecita, I’m sorry that I wasn’t more clear. I was referring more to drawing top performing college grads into the classroom. I feel that if we were drawing graduates who finished in the top 1/3 of their college class, as opposed to the bottom 1/3, we’d be much better off.
Tony
January 14th, 2011
3:08 pm
As in the past with other promises for better pay for teachers, performance pay will be dumped as soon as legislators see how much it will cost.
Fericita
January 14th, 2011
3:14 pm
Tony, I agree. The whole thing seems flawed – shouldn’t you just fire underperforming/bad teachers, not pay them less?
Dr NO
January 14th, 2011
3:17 pm
“shouldn’t you just fire underperforming/bad teachers, not pay them less?”
HERE HERE!! Fire the living hell out of em.
Mad Moderate
January 14th, 2011
3:17 pm
Education and teaching are two different things. Teaching is just one aspect of education. If you are a teacher, you know what I mean. It takes certain virtues to be a teacher and if you are in it for the money or summer breaks, you will not make it. Its an insult to think if you just pay teachers more, money it will make test scores better. That means politicians are applying that teachers are not doing their best now.
Mikey D
January 14th, 2011
3:20 pm
My fear is that the salary of those who choose to remain in the traditional pay scale will suddenly be frozen after a couple of years in order to divert money to the merit pay scale. I also believe that only a few will be allowed to collect bonuses under the merit pay. The state leaders tell us to trust them, but they also said the same thing to the teachers who earned National Board Certification… Trust is something that has to be earned, and the leaders in this state haven’t done much for the past decade that would make me believe that they are trustworthy…
Math Teacher
January 14th, 2011
3:30 pm
I graduated in the top 10% of my high school class, and graduated with Highest Honors from Ga. Tech. I also did very well on the certification test prior to teaching. If you look at either of those, I am a qualified teacher. If you look at my students’ test scores, you may or may not see the same thing, depending on what years you look at.
I have taught AP classes for the last 9 years in a poor urban school. Some years I have had several 3s, 4s, and 5s. Some years, there were only 1s and 2s. The difference was not my teaching or motivation or pay scale. The main factors were how prepared the students were before taking my class and how much time I was able to spend with them. (My worst years came when I only saw the AP students from January to May.)
I would be 100% behind merit pay if you could demonstrate that it accurately measured my effectiveness as a teacher; but experience and many of the arguments I have seen on this blog argue otherwise. Students are already being tested too much and a multiple choice test, while the easiest to create and grade, is the worst for measuring student mastery.
My Two Cents
January 14th, 2011
3:33 pm
I was against the idea of performance pay at first, but having had the opportunity to observe in multiple classrooms across schools in my county this year, I am changing my mind. I’ve seen teachers teach from behind the desk, have seen misguided lessons far off of the instructional calendar, and have seen drill and kill worksheets take the place of guided reading and thoughtful instruction…and some of these teachers make more than I do because they have more years under the belt.
I would gladly opt in to a performance pay program if the guidelines take more than test scores into account.
Helena
January 14th, 2011
3:42 pm
Thanks for the interview, Maureen! She brings up one of the main problems with merit pay: creating a system that would be fair to ALL teachers is incredibly difficult. The concept of “Merit Pay” — as those who aren’t in education often understand it — assumes that all teaching experiences and performance measures are equal. There are so many factors and variables that determine a teacher’s success or lack thereof; some are within a teacher’s control, while others are not. Plus, it’s it’s quite difficult to measure the success of a teacher in a low-income school vs. a high-testing school. If these plans were implemented on a school-by-school basis, judging teachers who are working in the same circumstances, then it could be fair. But most counties in Metro Atlanta are socioeconomically diverse, and you simply cannot put a program in place that would *fairly* judge all teachers in very different environments. Creating a system that would take all those variables into consideration is probably past the purview of any state’s DoE, much less Georgia’s. As I’ve said many times, “Merit Pay” is a great idea in theory, but incredibly difficult and maybe untenable in practice.
Mad Moderate
January 14th, 2011
3:51 pm
I believe if performance is based on improvement from start to end of the year that’s fair. Give students one test in September and give students same test (maybe change order of questions and answer choices) in April or May.
My fear is that teachers will be fighting over the higher achieving students so they can be paid more or enhance their job security and teachers will stop taking on the challenge of teaching special education kids or lower achieving students. It will also lead to some teachers gambling their career away by fixing test scores (APS).
I will paraphrase what a professor told me, It’s not the facilities, professors, or history that makes Duke a great school, but it’s the students.
Math Maestro
January 14th, 2011
4:03 pm
I came from a district that was one of the first in the nation 6-years ago to adopt student performance bonuses for the teachers. And I can tell the teachers to not be afraid of it, although there have been recent studies showing it to be ineffective. See
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7211919.html
First, understand that student performance means student growth, not just how many advanced students you have. The model is based on some Vanderbilt education researcher, who is now in North Carolina. I can best illustrate the model by an example.
If you inherit a student that scored a 30% on the standardized test and you helped raise that student to score 50%, then your index for that student performance is +20%. But if you inherit a student that scored 95%, but the student scored 90% while in your class, then your index for that student is -5%. And the overall student performance bonus is based on the accumulation or average of all the individual students index.
So the best potential growth for teacher bonuses is actually with the lower level students, which is the way to attract some teachers to those classrooms. I personally was one of the few teachers in the district that had 5 straight years of high bonuses because I had many lower level students that showed growth even though many still failed the state exam, while many teachers who had the advanced students made smaller gains with them, but most of their students passed the state exam.
But what many teachers decided was that the bonuses do not outweigh the load required to teach the lower level students, as I can attest to that because I am no longer in the classroom for that reason. It is exhausting and can quickly burn out a teacher. The best analogy I can give is ask any mother of 4 what it takes to be a good parent to them, and the first word is “exhausting”. Now multiply that to 180, and you understand how I feel. I’m starting to believe that it is not a natural human condition to have the Student/Adult ratio of 180:1. But if I had more parental support home, then that ratio is lowered because the students will have other positive adults in their lives.
I personally preferred the bonus program because I did get paid for good teaching as opposed to not get paid for good teaching. But ultimately what will make the difference is examining the Student/Adult ratio in the student lives, and adjusting the ratio by providing more positive Adults for the student.
other causes
January 14th, 2011
4:11 pm
What if we consider paying the parents for performance of the students? Let’s develop some tax incentives for attendance and grades. They receive tax incentives for every child maintaining at least a B average (let’s increase graduation rate) and attending school(cut the cost of taking parents to court for truancy). The parents are found to be a more powerful motivator for student achievement than teachers ever have been.
Nikole
January 14th, 2011
4:26 pm
The research I’ve done on the topic shows that value-added models are not accurate predictors or indicators of teacher effectiveness. However, if teachers want to make more, then we should just go along with merit pay. 9 times out of 10, students will show growth from the beginning to the end of the year. I doubt that the state knows what they are getting themselves into, and once it’s time to pay teachers, they will be in a state of shock on how much they have to spend, and then change their minds about the whole thing. (Similar to paying teachers for National Board Certification, which research actually shows that these teachers are more knowledgeable and effective)
justbrowsing
January 14th, 2011
5:00 pm
It can also be flawed. How does that impact Science and Social Studies teachers who teach disjointed subjects that are sepearaten from the prior grade levels: Earth Science, Life Science, Physical Science; or; Geography, World History, Georgia History. These subjects have little to do with each other. While other linear progressions might be obvious in math and/or reading, it is not the case in subjects such as those listed above. Examine student growth over the year, not in light of their scores the previous year. That would be extremely flawed to calculate value added in that manner for those subjects.
justbrowsing
January 14th, 2011
5:02 pm
*separate*
Math Maestro
January 14th, 2011
5:02 pm
The value-added merit pay results are still inconclusive. But some of the links are at
http://www.sas.com/govedu/edu/k12/evaas/index.html
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2010/09/teacher-performance-pay/
The question is do teachers agree that the more effective teacher pay should be differentiated?
If the teachers ourselves can not arrive at a consensus on this, then the public will just view us as an incoherent whole, thereby diminishing the credibility of the teachers’ voice.
justbrowsing
January 14th, 2011
5:07 pm
There are so many VAM’s to use. Are they going to compare teachers to a set rate? to state averages? school averages? We need to know which VAM model they will purportedly use. From what I have read, these districts have not determined which VAM methods they will use.
teach1
January 14th, 2011
5:19 pm
One disadvantage would be my personal scenario this year. I have taught very successfully in Grade 1 for the last 15 years. High reading and math scores on the CRCT, as well as, well prepared students for the next grade. I was an exceptional teacher in first grade.
This year, I was asked to take on a Grade 3 position. Even though I have put much more work into my teaching this year, I do not feel as confident about the growth of my students. There are many standards I could have presented more effectively with experience in this grade level. I am still working with my students to give them everything I can this year. But I definitely see room for improvements in many areas.
Yes, I will be a better teacher next year. I will be able to use this year to build a better plan for my students. Not because I will put more time in but because of a finer understanding of the standards.
So do I deserve more money this year or last year? I certainly have worked 10 times harder and many hours longer this year with me in a new grade level. Under the merit system I certainly would have many questions about “helping” a school out to cover a position that may be new to me. I would be very confident of achieving merit pay in my previous grade. Give 3 more years and I may have the same confidence in my new grade.
How does this situation get figured in?
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Math Maestro
January 14th, 2011
5:27 pm
justbrowing says: “There are so many VAM’s to use. Are they going to compare teachers to a set rate? to state averages? school averages?”
I did oversimplify the example above from my former district. There are more complex calculations that go into the VAM to spit out the bonus dollar figures. And that complex calculation was a point of controversy in the district, because the teachers did not trust the administrators to objectively perform the analyses, nor did most teachers understand the statistical formulas in the SAS calculations. In fact, what some teachers saw as growth in their students did not always register in the SAS results, therefore creating even more dissatisfaction. But in most cases, the teachers that we all know to be effective did get rewarded.
Math Maestro
January 14th, 2011
5:37 pm
teach1 says: “So do I deserve more money this year or last year?”
In your example, yes you would have had a lower bonus for your 3rd class than your previous year in your 1st grade. Again, it is based on growth not just the number of advanced students.
But given this environment, I can see a long term trend from the teachers to resist new assignments citing say inexperience in another grade risking their bonus or evaluation. But for all practical purposes, this environment is no different than any other professional industry. Companies take risk re-assigning employees for the betterment of the team. Individuals decide whether to be that team player. Etc.
Math Teacher
January 14th, 2011
5:47 pm
Math Maestro,
Thank you for your insight (4:03). There are still too many variables outside of a teacher’s control, even if we did have an accurate test. We can’t control how often the students come to class, what our schedule looks like each year, or even if we’ll have the same class all year. If my classes change halfway through, would I be rated based on my first set of students or my second?
There are also too many questions about the testing. The point justbrowsing made about disjointed subjects is valid, but we should also consider those that are ‘jointed’. If a student comes into 5th grade not knowing the alphabet, it will take a lot of time and individual attention to get that student to improve, but it would take a miracle for them to be reading on the 5th grade level at the end of the year. Likewise, if students don’t know fractions and basic algebra, they are going to have a very difficult time with Calculus; but the curriculum is so extensive that there isn’t enough time to do the remediation they will need.
Also, if they use the tests that are already in place, which will be the easiest and cheapest idea, we won’t be able to measure growth. The 8th grade CRCT can measure whether or not a student knows 8th grade material, but not whether they have moved from a 3rd grade level to a 6th grade level. If this is going to be the measure of what a student knows, I am sure that you will see even more worksheets on a daily basis to prepare them for the multiple choice test.
If we want to measure good teaching, the first thing we need is a good measure. There are too many questions about this for me to stake my livelihood on it.
EB
January 14th, 2011
5:54 pm
@Math Maestro
Unfortunately we aren’t talking about the company taking the risk. After 30 years in the business world, I was never asked to take LESS money to take one for the team. In the instance given, the teacher assumes all the risk…that is not how it works in the outside world.
teach1
January 14th, 2011
6:06 pm
Thank you EB!
Top School
January 14th, 2011
6:25 pm
First you need ETHICAL ADMINISTRATION that can implement PAY for PERFORMANCE.
APS Northside WARREN T. JACKSON ELEMENTARY school holds almost every AWARD known to the EDUCATION “HALL” OF FAME.
And you think this school is better…and the teachers are better…and the administration is better.
Evaluate the PRINCIPAL and listen to this SUPERIOR LEADERSHIP.
Before the bottom can be compensated for their EXCEPTIONAL work…you would need to clean house of the top.
Principal Reich and her staff of exceptional TEACHERS at Warren T. Jackson Elementary could not even figure out how to read the directions on the old PAY FOR PERFORMANCE plan to form a consensus to pay out the money they earned on FALSIFIED DOCUMENTS
http://www.youtube.com/user/TopSchoolAtlanta#p/u/13/n49m0VrTuLY
and these are the TOP EDUCATORS in ATLANTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
http://www.youtube.com/user/TopSchoolAtlanta#p/u/21/dDSFPmcD3Tk
@Math Maestro—I am trying to keep up…you post so fast! YOU MUST BE REALLY SMART…
and How do you do that bold thing…Wow…you are really good!
teacher&mom
January 14th, 2011
6:26 pm
What happens in a district that mandates a reading curriculum….like Reading First? Is it fair to penalize teachers if you tie their hands and force them to teach from a scripted curriculum?
What happens if you agree to supervise a student teacher for a semester and the test scores dip?
What happens if your administration decides to re-arrange the schedule? For example, you go from a 4 X 4 block schedule to a 7 period day or an A/B block schedule. Isn’t it possible that scores may slide as everyone adjusts to a new schedule?
What happens if the budget crunch means 35+ students in a classroom?
What happens when the Common Core Standards come into play and teachers begin to train and implement the new standards? Will they experience a dip in scores?
What happens when a teacher is out for maternity leave and the district decides to not pay for a long-term substitute and instead rotates different substitutes in and out of the classroom for several weeks?
What happens if the local judicial system does not help the school system with chronic attendance problems and teachers have students with 20+ absences taking the CRCT/EOCT?
What happens to the test score of the student who finally qualifies for special education AFTER the CRCT?
What happens to the teachers’ pay when we have a testing fiasco like the 7th grade Social Studies CRCT?
Remember the National Board Certification stipend —-Gone
Remember the High Performing Administrator Bonus — not in this year’s budget
Remember the Master Teacher Program —- anyone know where it went?
I wonder how many are willing to take the risk that maybe this time our legislators won’t change their minds or manipulate the numbers to control costs?
Math Maestro
January 14th, 2011
6:28 pm
justbrowsing says: “How does that impact Science and Social Studies teachers who teach disjointed subjects that are sepearaten from the prior grade levels: Earth Science, Life Science, Physical Science; or; Geography, World History, Georgia History.”
What our district did for disjointed subjects was compare students of the similar demographics with each other–achievement history, social-economic, race, etc., and ranked teacher bonuses within in the collective pool on the demographics stratus. I can go into more detail if you want me to. But yes, this was part of those complex calculations that many of the teachers did not understand therefore, automatically opposed.
Math Teacher says: “If we want to measure good teaching, the first thing we need is a good measure. There are too many questions about this for me to stake my livelihood on it.”
All valid points. And I pointed out above, he value-added merit pay results are still inconclusive. At my school, pretty much all the teachers knew who were the good ones and who were not. There are not many schools where a teacher would say “we all teach the same, and I would send my kids to anyone of them.” So as researchers are sorting out how to measure teachers, that should not deter teachers to arrive at a consensus of should the more effective teachers’ pay be differentiated?
BTW, Bill Gates is spending 500 mil for education researchers to find how to measure effective teachers. So that is coming whether we like it or not. The question is can all the teachers arrive at a consensus and not like an incoherent whole?
EB says: “Unfortunately we aren’t talking about the company taking the risk. After 30 years in the business world, I was never asked to take LESS money to take one for the team.”
Sure company always ask their employees to take LESS money. It is called a “layoff”. And from the current looks, they are doing plenty of that nowadays.
Toto
January 14th, 2011
6:38 pm
Public school economics teacher: Oxymoron
Contrary to the U.S. Constitution, the so-called public school system is a state run monopoly. Any competition from private or home school is put at an economic disadvantage because of a compulsory schooling law which mandates that non-users of the government school
must still fund it. Because of this FACT, any true free market feedback by parents (customers) is nullified. As a result, we now have a top-heavy, indebted, ineffective, system which taxpayers cannot say “no” to. For this reason, unqualified or ineffective teachers cannot be removed in a timely fashion. Poor curriculum cannot be easily removed, nor can individual modifications be easily made. There is no pressure to keep costs under control; an official merely needs to threaten trailers to get a tax hike through. Also, parents are encouraged to become lazy and irresponsible and let “someone else” pay for their children. Those that want a certain religious education are penalized. The State, contrary to the U.S. Constitution, begins to think it owns the children. In light of these truths, it is ridiculous to think that tacking on a “teacher performance” measure tied to their salary will benefit parents, students, or teachers, for that matter. THIS IS FAUX FREE MARKET band aid! All it will do is put puppet strings on the good teachers and make them dance to the globalist controlled State tune. They will know exactly what each teacher teaches. No more shutting the door and teaching phonics, math facts or “real” math. The decent teachers’ days are numbered.
teach1
January 14th, 2011
6:42 pm
I DID NOT HAVE TO take the position. I was NOT in a lay off situation. It was my choice. I could have stayed where I was nice and comfortable and left the harder to fill position to someone else and thus maintained MY “merit pay” instead of moving to help out the schools needs.
Give me a few years and I may be one of their top performing 3rd grade teachers but would I have given up 3 years of a higher potential merit pay rate in first grade if I had stayed. Would a smart person really take a pay cut just to HELP the school? Remember, I am working much longer days this year (at least 8 hours a week more than last year) in order to plan and establish my third grade long term goals. In 3 years, I will not have to work as hard because I will have my fundamentals behind me BUT I will then get paid more? I am not sure this is making sense to me.
teacher&mom
January 14th, 2011
6:48 pm
@math maestro: “But given this environment, I can see a long term trend from the teachers to resist new assignments citing say inexperience in another grade risking their bonus or evaluation.”
And I would counter that this is an excellent example of a damaging unintended consequence of merit pay. When teachers switch teaching assignments, they gain a greater understanding of the scope and sequence of the curriculum. For example, I’m a high school teacher who is teaching a new subject this year. Because I have taught at the middle school level, I know the middle school science standards inside and out. When I am covering electricity and magnetism, I can use that knowledge to help my students make connections between their 8th grade science class and my Physical Science class. If I ever return to the middle school, I will have a deeper understanding of the knowledge & skills needed at the high school level.
We really need to consider the unintended consequences of merit pay…. do the positives outweigh the negatives?
teacher&mom
January 14th, 2011
6:54 pm
Oh yes…. Let’s talk about Bill Gates….
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-learning-about-teaching
Math Teacher
January 14th, 2011
7:03 pm
Math Maestro (6:28),
Again, thanks for your comments. If we adjust the scores based off of the students’ demographics and socio-economic status, isn’t that a confirmation that their background DOES influence how they do on tests? This seems like a major fact that so many of the reformers choose to ignore.
Bill Gates also dumped a lot of money into funding small schools, but then decided that they weren’t doing the job, so he pulled out. What’s to say he won’t change his mind about this? We could also ask Holly Lahti or Jim McCullar for some ideas; they just won a lot of lottery money and may have some good ideas on education.
Fericita
January 14th, 2011
7:07 pm
Math Maestro: “At my school, pretty much all the teachers knew who were the good ones and who were not… The question is can all the teachers arrive at a consensus and not like an incoherent whole?”
I feel the same way, and I bet most teachers could identify the good, the bad, and the ugly in their school. As a push -in teacher, I based my opinion on observation, collaboration, and interaction with students in a teacher’s class. Which means that if an administrator did his/her job, he/she would also know who the good and bad teachers are, and could evaluate accordingly. However, a 20 minute fly-by is not enough to inform what really goes on in a class.
justbrowsing
January 14th, 2011
7:09 pm
I wish we would refrain from pushing the free market concept in education. It does not work. Parents and students are, and will never be, customers. They cannot demand an expected output, when they themselves primarily impact the outcomes. Just puffery talk.
teacher&mom
January 14th, 2011
7:13 pm
More on how Gates uses his power to push his own personal educational agenda:
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3781
Top School
January 14th, 2011
7:39 pm
@ justbrowsing
I love that statement…”JUST PUFFERY TALK”
These leaders with all these ideas…
I am telling you guys…the TOP MODEL SCHOOL …with all the awards sits on MT. PARAN ROAD…straddled into the best neighborhood in Atlanta. All you need to do is go over to the school and model every school house in GEORGIA after this one. The principal can tell you exactly “how it works”…
And most of the LEADERSHIP in Atlanta want to keep it working this way…They live in the neighborhood.
IT IS CALLED hidden SEGREGATION…
http://www.youtube.com/user/TopSchoolAtlanta#p/u/39/urvDMBN6y4k
and if you are one of the “chosen ones” you too can attend this prestigious PUBLIC SCHOOL.
http://www.TopPublicSchoolCorruptionAtlanta.com
Top School
January 14th, 2011
7:56 pm
@Math Maestro: “At my school, pretty much all the teachers knew who were the good ones and who were not… The question is can all the teachers arrive at a consensus and not like an incoherent whole?”
This is the TOP SCHOOL in ATLANTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS…CONSENSUS for PAY for PERFORMANCE…
http://www.youtube.com/user/TopSchoolAtlanta#p/u/21/dDSFPmcD3Tk
and the teachers and principal could not even follow the written instructions provided by the State of Georgia…THESE ARE THE TOP EDUCATORS…
I DON’T think so…
The ADMINISTRATION currently influences UNETHICAL decision making in Atlanta Public Schools…TO THE DEGREE…that an entire system has been influenced to CHEAT on standardized testing. AND NOTHING HAS BEEN CONSTRUCTIVELY ACCOMPLISHED TO SHOW THE CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR CORRUPT LEADERSHIP.
OBVIOUSLY, you don’t know what it is like to worry about losing your job.
Those in APS…know how to follow the leader. And GOVERNOR DEAL is the MASTER LEADER of the State of Georgia…
So let’s see how he leads this APS-GBI INVESTIGATION will conclude.
I would like to believe you “ideal”…but I’ve personally experienced something on the other end…ILLEGAL and CRIMINAL…and nothing has been addressed PROPERLY by any entity.
Carefully watch how DEAL handles APS…This will set the tone for rest of the EDUCATIONAL systems that dare to be as CORRUPT.
Top School
January 14th, 2011
7:59 pm
@ Math Maestro
And keep posting …you are stimulating the minds of these tired bloggers.
GREAT JOB!
d
January 14th, 2011
7:59 pm
One thing that I do want to see is that should I choose to opt out of the system (especially since I’m in my 6th year of teaching) is do not take away the ability to get an increase based upon education providing that I don’t go off to some diploma mill. If I get an advanced degree in my field, pay me for that, not if I get a degree in ed leadership (because I can say right now, I have no intention of becoming an administrator).
Freedom Education
January 14th, 2011
8:34 pm
I did not have time to read all the comments, but I would like to offer this information. “The most rigorous experimental study of performance-based teacher compensation ever conducted in the U.S. shows that a nationally watched bonus-pay system had no overall impact on student achievement” (Sawchuk, 2010, p. 8). The study offered 300 willing teachers $5,000 to $15,000 to do better and they could not. The study concluded that teachers are doing the best they can and money cannot make them perform any better.
Sawchuk, S. (2010). Study throws cold water on bonus pay. Education Digest, 76(4), 8-11.
RBN
January 14th, 2011
8:57 pm
I find it ironic that you could attract the top performers in college by saying we are not paying for advanced degrees. Most top performers want to get advanced degrees and should be compensated for them. I believe the only workable model would be group bonuses for improving student perforamce in schools. That would promote collegiality and improve performance. The level of trust for teachers of policy makers in Georgia is so poor that much work will have to be done to put any plan in place. I can not see many current teachers swapping the current salary schedule for any performance plan if they plan on staying in teaching for their career. Too many factors change over time from teaching assignments to changes in testing to changes in student demographics.
Happy Teacher
January 14th, 2011
9:06 pm
@RBN – Most top performers who truly care about students want to be in the classroom, doing what they do. They want to spend their time outside of school planning amazing lessons and assessing the work of their students, not reading 80 pages about a topic that will never impact the learning of their students.
The craft and the art
January 14th, 2011
9:06 pm
Teaching is not a pay for performance type of work. If Tom Hanks was offered a bonus if he could boost box office sales for a movie, would he be a better actor? If someone takes pictures at your wedding, would he or she take better pictures if you offered them a bonus for selling you the most pictures? Teachers, just like most professions, become better at their craft as they gain experience. Another method of making a teacher better is through educating the educators, hence paying for higher degrees. If we treat education like a sales career (which frequently utilizes bonus pay), then we are motivating to sell a test, not improving the art and the craft of teaching. You will then find an education system that becomes better and better at teaching how to do well on a test with multiple choice answers. I don’t decide whether or not I will watch a Tom Hanks movie based on how well his box office sales did last go around.
Dedicatedandtired
January 14th, 2011
9:09 pm
Of course money isn’t an incentive… the powers that be forget that the motivator for teachers is not money. The motivation is an intrinsic need to help people and to make a difference In the world. That motivation is the reason why people who are motivated by money have no problem taking advantage of teachers. Teachers will take all they can because they know what they do matters! Teachers are becoming experts at doing the song and dance of the day, week and or year. Merit pay will not work for the selfless. You are going to have to find a better way to get rid of bad teachers…oh that’s right, teachers are in short supply and are needed. Quite the quandary…how does one attract selfless, intrinsically motivated smart people?
Toto
January 14th, 2011
9:15 pm
@justbrowsing
“I wish we would refrain from pushing the free market concept in education. It does not work. Parents and students are, and will never be, customers. They cannot demand an expected output, when they themselves primarily impact the outcomes. Just puffery talk.”
One thing you are correct on; apples and oranges do not mix. Compulsory public education is a state run monopoly and has nothing to do with the free market. Adding a faux free market band aid like merit pay will not work. However, you are quite wrong that parents will never be customers for private education. I am a private tutor for other home schoolers. If the parents are not satisfied with my work, we discuss modification or they find another tutor that best suits their individual goals for their child. If no one signs up for my classes, I don’t teach and I don’t get paid. It’s that simple. Also, parents talk, and they will make recommendations to other parents about the effectiveness of one’s class. Personally, I have certain standards that I prefer to teach to, and sometimes it is too high for some students. I am willing to lose some under those conditions, because I am not dependent on the income. It is a win-win-win situation for parent, student, and teacher. Yes, Virginia, there really is a free market education.
teacher&mom
January 14th, 2011
10:01 pm
@Happy Teacher— ” Most top performers who truly care about students want to be in the classroom, doing what they do. They want to spend their time outside of school planning amazing lessons and assessing the work of their students, not reading 80 pages about a topic that will never impact the learning of their students.”
Obviously you have a poor opinion of graduate level work. My graduate degree opened my eyes to poor teaching practices and helped make me a more reflective and effective teacher. Sitting in a classroom with fellow teachers discussing strategies and methods to address struggling readers, sharing ideas about how to motivate the unmotivated, debating the relevance of a strong curriculum, learning to dissect research and data, studying school law, understand the differences in educational philosophies… behaviorists,existentialist, pragmatists, constructivism, Dewey….and then understanding how those philosophies shape curriculum, instruction, education policy.
No, it was not a waste of time. Learning is never a waste of time. Of course, a graduate degree is like most things….you get out of it what you put into it.