Thoughts on "Merit Pay" for teachers

The idea of giving bonuses to the best teachers, and the teachers who work the hardest is a good one. The problem arises when you seek to determine what constitutes the "best" or "hardest working" teacher. The solution that appeals to many is simply to use student test scores as an indicator of teacher proficiency. Unfortunately, using one set of test scores doesn't give an accurate picture of what's going on in the classroom.

We all know that some teachers get to teach AP and Honors classes, other teachers get a lot of English Language Learners, some get a lot of 504 and IEP students (students with exceptional behavioral problems, disabilities, or who have special educational needs), and a few actually do get an "average cross section of the student body". This means that great care must be taken to accurately rate teacher performance, as you will often have "apples to oranges" comparisons.

Which of these teachers will have students with great test scores? Obviously, the AP and Honors students will test higher.
These also tend to be the better behaved and easier to teach students - which means that teaching them is often easier than working with struggling, or academically/behaviorally challenged students. So the teachers who get the most challenging students (who also tend to be teachers who are lower on the seniority scale, so already earn a lower base salary) would be the ones least likely to be able to earn the "merit" bonuses.

If I am a 9th grade English teacher, and have a student come to my class in the fall reading at a 3rd grade level, and leave in the spring reading at a 7th grade level, am I a great teacher for helping them make up four lost years in one year, or a crummy teacher because my student won't be at grade level next fall (when they "age" into the 10th grade)?

Unless we create a program that tracks each child individually, and use the individual improvements of students in the class (weighted for how many days the student was actually in attendance), there is no accurate way to measure how much your students have improved, or how “meritorious” a teacher you are.

The "Combat Pay" concept is much better than the "Merit Pay" concept.
This idea was for the state/federal government to step in and offer bonuses and incentives to teachers that worked at high needs schools. This would attract more (and theoretically better) candidates to those districts and schools that are underperforming.

In my local area, the lowest paying schools tend to be the “urban”, Title 1 schools that have the lowest achievement scores, as well as large numbers of (hard-working and caring) beginning teachers who aren't being given the chance to gain experience in successful school environments. It is common for teachers (those that don't leave the field in the first few years) to move to the more upper-middle class districts in the area after spending a few years clearing their credential.

I am distressed to hear that one of President Obama's plans for "improving" education is to create a program that puts brand new administrators into underperforming Title 1 schools. This is like having the new law school graduate work on the murder trial, while the firm's partners do simple boilerplate contracts, or having an intern fresh from med school do the open heart surgery, while the senior surgeon son the hospital staff deal with minor scrapes from a bicycle accident.