Saturday
November 22, 2008
by desertjim
In the summer of 2007, Senator Barack Obama stood in front of the National Education Association (NEA) convention and told the assembled teachers that he was in favor of paying teachers more if their students perform well on tests or if they take on added duties. This year, as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, he repeated his support of merit pay. “I know this wasn’t necessarily the most popular part of my speech last year,” he said, “but I said it then and I say it again today because it’s what I believe.” Both conventions booed his suggestion.
Last week, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said there is a role for raises based on how well students learn. Weingarten said, “If an innovation is collaborative and fair, teachers will embrace it, and it will succeed.” Teachers unions in some cities, including New York City, have begun to accept performance pay. In New York, teachers in 128 of 200 eligible schools are getting bonuses for improving student achievement.
Draft legislation of the updated version of No Child Left Behind included a proposal to give bonuses of up to $10,000 to “outstanding teachers”. The proposal doesn’t spell out who would be eligible for the extra money, although test scores would be a factor. NEA president Reg Weaver rejected the idea during last year’s hearings, saying that level of detail should be bargained locally, not spelled out by Congress. In fact, the local NEA affiliate in Denver has accepted a limited merit pay plan.
So, is merit pay back on the table in local negotiations? For six years in the 1960s, the district I worked in had a limited merit pay plan. Teachers received $200 increases in pay based on the principals’ decision. It was a whimsical system. Few women received the bonus, men almost always got it. I received the bonus every year I was eligible except the year I headed the NEA local that negotiated our first collective bargaining agreement. The unfair bonus system was one of the first items we bargained to get rid of once we had a labor contract.
I have no problem with programs which offer higher pay for extra duties or extended years. Teachers who become department heads, team leaders or curriculum developers need to be reimbursed. I fear any new merit pay system that is even partially based on student test scores. We have evidence that the scores are not measuring student ability to succeed after high school.
Teachers who receive underachieving students in September can not reasonably be expected to raise them to acceptable test levels by March. Would such teachers be penalized? Would teachers in schools with high percentages of special education students, or English as a second language students be cut out of the system? If tests are not part of the criteria for awarding merit pay, what would replace them? How can merit pay be made fair to all the teachers?
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