Dear Dr. Ravitch,
It seems to me that your objections to merit pay largely have to do with the way it is currently being proposed. I think most educators and many others in the field agree that using student standardized test scores as the primary means of assessing teacher effectiveness is ineffective. Basing merit pay on test scores would therefore be equally ineffective.
I also agree that the prospect of a $5000 bonus isn't going to entice Ivy League graduates into the field. I'm an Ivy League graduate myself (your list stopped just short of my alma mater, U. Penn) and believe me, if I thought I could be truly content doing anything else, I probably would - and not because of the pay.
The problem with studies showing that merit pay doesn't increase effectiveness is that they are testing the wrong thing. It should be obvious that even very hefty bonuses cannot turn incompetent teachers into competent ones. The questions that need to be asked are more complicated and difficult to measure. We need to be asking how the prospect of being compensated according to accomplishment affects motivation and attitudes toward the profession.
I don't see how introducing merit pay will necessarily undermine teamwork and cause teachers to trade long-term thinking for short-term thinking. Why can't teachers be rewarded for long-term accomplishments rather than short-term ones? Why can't they be collectively rewarded for collaborative work rather than merely as individuals? This is not what's on the table at the moment, but I wonder if, rather than attacking merit pay per se, we ought to be proposing and campaigning for better ways of implementing it. Do you really believe that a teacher's salary should have no correlation to his or her effectiveness in the classroom?
If rewarding teachers based on merit so corrupts school culture, shouldn't we also do away with grades for students, which are also based on merit? No C-student should ever have to feel outdone by an A-student, so let's give everyone a C+ when they start kindergarten and pass them on from one grade to the next until they reach 12th grade, when we'll give them all an A+ and a diploma for all that they've accomplished in 12 years. That's how we currently treat teachers. As a future teacher, I find that humiliating.
It's clear that we absolutely have to do something introduce some concept of merit into the American public school teaching profession.
If "attracting talent" is essential to improving the quality of teaching in our schools - and clearly it is, since we, unlike Finland, Singapore, and most of the rest of the world, currently draw our teachers disproportionately from the bottom of the pool - then we need to be asking: What do America's "best and brightest" really want?
They want to be challenged. They want to have opportunities to accomplish great things and be recognized for the great things they accomplish. It doesn't have to be through monetary reward; indeed, I would choose an invigorating work environment with colleagues and administrators who challenge me to refine my skills over a pay-raise any day. But our current system offers neither.
However large or small that paycheck is, a teacher should know at the end of the day that he or she earned it; she just didn't get it for showing up. Similarly, when I receive an MA in education and recommendation for teacher certification from your own NYU Steinhardt in two months, I'd like to know that it's because I produced good work and mastered the skills necessary to successfully enter the teaching profession - not because I showed up and paid tuition. But even at a highly respected school like Steinhardt I have seen a shocking number of students doing little more than showing up and paying tuition, yet still being passed by their (mostly adjunct) instructors, foreshadowing the way they will soon be compensated as teachers. For me, the worst part of being a graduate student in education and a student-teacher in a New York City public school is the fact that what is expected of me is so far below what I expect of myself that I have little way of knowing whether what I accomplish is truly excellent or simply better than the semi-mediocre “norm.”
I agree that merit pay as it is currently being proposed is not likely to be effective. It is not possible to change the caliber of a school's faculty simply by offering the same teachers more money if they figure out a way to produce better test scores. At best, a few teachers might be inspired to work harder, but what will they actually be working toward? And better yet, how will they suddenly acquire the teaching skills and subject area competence they are lacking in order to become more effective? Perhaps no form of merit pay can solve our problems. But any type of school reform that does not have at its core an expectation that teachers be professionals of merit is a waste of time and an injustice to our students.
Christina Lordeman
It seems to me that your objections to merit pay largely have to do with the way it is currently being proposed. I think most educators and many others in the field agree that using student standardized test scores as the primary means of assessing teacher effectiveness is ineffective. Basing merit pay on test scores would therefore be equally ineffective.
I also agree that the prospect of a $5000 bonus isn't going to entice Ivy League graduates into the field. I'm an Ivy League graduate myself (your list stopped just short of my alma mater, U. Penn) and believe me, if I thought I could be truly content doing anything else, I probably would - and not because of the pay.
The problem with studies showing that merit pay doesn't increase effectiveness is that they are testing the wrong thing. It should be obvious that even very hefty bonuses cannot turn incompetent teachers into competent ones. The questions that need to be asked are more complicated and difficult to measure. We need to be asking how the prospect of being compensated according to accomplishment affects motivation and attitudes toward the profession.
I don't see how introducing merit pay will necessarily undermine teamwork and cause teachers to trade long-term thinking for short-term thinking. Why can't teachers be rewarded for long-term accomplishments rather than short-term ones? Why can't they be collectively rewarded for collaborative work rather than merely as individuals? This is not what's on the table at the moment, but I wonder if, rather than attacking merit pay per se, we ought to be proposing and campaigning for better ways of implementing it. Do you really believe that a teacher's salary should have no correlation to his or her effectiveness in the classroom?
If rewarding teachers based on merit so corrupts school culture, shouldn't we also do away with grades for students, which are also based on merit? No C-student should ever have to feel outdone by an A-student, so let's give everyone a C+ when they start kindergarten and pass them on from one grade to the next until they reach 12th grade, when we'll give them all an A+ and a diploma for all that they've accomplished in 12 years. That's how we currently treat teachers. As a future teacher, I find that humiliating.
It's clear that we absolutely have to do something introduce some concept of merit into the American public school teaching profession.
If "attracting talent" is essential to improving the quality of teaching in our schools - and clearly it is, since we, unlike Finland, Singapore, and most of the rest of the world, currently draw our teachers disproportionately from the bottom of the pool - then we need to be asking: What do America's "best and brightest" really want?
They want to be challenged. They want to have opportunities to accomplish great things and be recognized for the great things they accomplish. It doesn't have to be through monetary reward; indeed, I would choose an invigorating work environment with colleagues and administrators who challenge me to refine my skills over a pay-raise any day. But our current system offers neither.
However large or small that paycheck is, a teacher should know at the end of the day that he or she earned it; she just didn't get it for showing up. Similarly, when I receive an MA in education and recommendation for teacher certification from your own NYU Steinhardt in two months, I'd like to know that it's because I produced good work and mastered the skills necessary to successfully enter the teaching profession - not because I showed up and paid tuition. But even at a highly respected school like Steinhardt I have seen a shocking number of students doing little more than showing up and paying tuition, yet still being passed by their (mostly adjunct) instructors, foreshadowing the way they will soon be compensated as teachers. For me, the worst part of being a graduate student in education and a student-teacher in a New York City public school is the fact that what is expected of me is so far below what I expect of myself that I have little way of knowing whether what I accomplish is truly excellent or simply better than the semi-mediocre “norm.”
I agree that merit pay as it is currently being proposed is not likely to be effective. It is not possible to change the caliber of a school's faculty simply by offering the same teachers more money if they figure out a way to produce better test scores. At best, a few teachers might be inspired to work harder, but what will they actually be working toward? And better yet, how will they suddenly acquire the teaching skills and subject area competence they are lacking in order to become more effective? Perhaps no form of merit pay can solve our problems. But any type of school reform that does not have at its core an expectation that teachers be professionals of merit is a waste of time and an injustice to our students.
Christina Lordeman
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