TheApple

 I believe it needs to be a blend of things.  However, my greater concern is how and who will do the evaluating.  Currently there are too many administrators that don't do teacher evaluations properly now and can't keep up.  I have know administrators to just come up with dates and never even go into the classroom on those dates.  This is why there are teachers still teaching that should never have stayed in the profession.  It takes a lot of work to justify letting a teacher go especially if they never received bad evals.  My other concern is that there are too many subjects that are not tested: business, family and consumer science, phys. ed., industrial artsl, art.  How would it be determined that these teachers deserve merit pay?  Often these subject require so much more energy to teach and often discover talents these kids have that are not shown elsewhere but everyone looks upon these areas as the time when the kids "play" which is a joke in itself.

My question is who will evaluate the administrators?  This is something that needs to done.

 Teachers already get higher pay for more advanced degrees, and if they take continuing education classes, that would seem to show an interest in improving their skills. 

I'd say that if merit pay ever does come to pass, it should be based on many sources of input. By the way, does "Teacher Evaluations," mentioned above, mean administrative, peer, student evaluations or all of them?

If merit pay is based on widely-blended input, there will, I believe, be less chance of inequality and/or personal animus skewing the awards.

I have always thought this would be a great way to get paid:

It’s been said a thousand times, and now it’s time to act. Teachers today are just babysitters for their students. Hamstrung by the “No Child Left Behind” act, ineffectual school districts that are more like petty bureaucracies and their inability to administer corporal punishment, teachers have been reduced to little more than babysitters. It’s time to treat them that way. Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! 

Let’s put things in perspective and pay them for what they do, baby sit!  We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time.  That would be $19.50 a day (7:00 AM to 3:30 (or so) PM with just .25 min. off for lunch).   Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. 

Now do the math.  How many do they teach in a class, 30?  So that's $19.50 x 30 =$585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! we're not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE... That's $585 x 180= $105,300 per year. 

What about those special teachers and the ones with master's degrees?  Well, we could just pay them minimum wage, and just to be fair, round it off to $7.00 an hour. That would be $7 x 6 ½ hours x 30 children x180 days = $245,700 per year. 

Wait a minute, there's something wrong here!  If an average teachers salary is $50,000/180 days = $277/per day /students = $9.23/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student. A very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even try - with your help - to EDUCATE our kids! WHAT A DEAL... And we don't even have to buy  pizza!

Then they should change the name of the degree that you go to college to become a teacher to B.A. (Babysitting Arts)

There is no one way to assess teacher effectiveness for several reasons:

I. There is no standard definition of what effectiveness means

    A. Not all learning is measureable

        1. Part of the purpose of school is to socialize children

        2. Learning about honesty, fortitude, empathy and most other desireable qualities cannot be immediately measured

        3. The effect of teaching is supposed to be long-term, not immediate

    B. The measurements used do not measure what they claim to measure

        1. No standardized test has ever been created that matches what has been taught

           a, pacing and unit order can vary from school to school or community to community

          b, the only was to assure a match between the curriculum and the test is to design the cutrriculum to match the test, which would have    the wrong thing driving instruction

       2. The tests we give are filled with errors, poorly written questions, and boring reading passages that focus on narrow, piecemeal skills and have nothing to do with literature or reading as a holistic process.

       3. Scoring of tests that include writing of any kind is, by definition, subjective.

II. There is no standard measurement of teacher effect, however it is defined

    A. Standardized tests are not intended to measure teacher effectiveness

        1. Standardized tests and teacher effectiveness must use different sample sizes so results are not directly comparable

        2. The performance of any individual student or group of students on any assessment is strongly affected  by factors beyond the teacher's effect and control

            a. nutritiion

            b. genetics

            c. prior learning

            d. cultural differences

            e, differing educational opportunities

             f. teachers assigned to teaching out of their certification

             g. the other students in the class

             h. the weather

              i. physical conditions and distractions in the testing room

              j. testing anxiety

             k. positive or negative events that occur in the home or community

    B. Many teachers teach subjects not tested

    C. Does effectiveness mean the same for all teachers? Should effectiveness be defined the same way for an English teacher, a gym teacher, a special education teachers, and a foreign language teacher? Can it be?

III. Teacher effectiveness is, to some great or lesser extent, a product of the school's administration

    A. Not all teachers are treated the same

    B. Resources are not shared equitably

    C. Not all teachers receive the same professional development

    D. Teacher observation by administrators is not consistent

I could go on, and on, and on, and on.

The biggest problem with merit pay for teachers is that it makes collaboration less likely because teachers are put in competition with their colleagues. The lack of collaboration hurts the students, the teachers and the school system.

I agree with Devin nearly 100%, with a few additional comments.

I work with behavior disorder students and my student population is quite small, usually less than 15, often in the single digits.  In other words, not a large enough group to be statistically significant.  In addition, I get a mix of SPED students with my "regular" students, many of them below grade level.  For example, in the coming year, I am to have a 12th grader who has a 225 lexile, making his reading level about 2nd grade.  He is a regular education student as well, meaning no supports required.  However, I am, under NCLB, required to get him up to his grade level.  Now, what do you think caused this young man to be so far below average?  Is it something that I can actually have an effect on? 

In addition, I teach all of the core classes: science, math, com arts, social studies and an elective of some kind.  I never teach the same course two years in a row, seldom do I teach a course two times in three years.  I also have minimal resources.  No science equipment to speak of (read that as no tables, no anything except what I buy myself), no media center, no computer lab...ok, what I do have is my classroom and some books.  I also am not allowed to give homework.  Add that to the fact that many of my students have chronic, historic attendance problems coupled with emotional/mental issues and you will figure that I can't cover the same amount of curriculum as a regular school teacher.  However (again) I am required to give the same EOCT as every other teacher.  Of COURSE my students will do worse! 

I could go on, but this is enough (I hope!) to show that my job isn't like the average teacher's.  How can I be compared with them?  How can I get my "Merit pay" with an equal chance of actually beaing able to earn it?  The deck is stacked against all teachers in my situation.  We have the hardest kids to teach, many of whom already have a history of failure and have little hope.  We have the least resources and little chance of getting more in our current economy.  Oh, did I mention that I am certified to teach only one of the subjects?  Because I work with behavior disorder students, that is all that is required.  If I was required to be certified in all of the subjects, I'd be out of a job...and there would be no one to fill it.  How many people do you know certified in five subject areas?  How many more years of school would I have to go through at my own expense to get those certifications?  I've already have 7.5 years!  I don't have the time left in my life, nor the income, to do so.  Do you think any one who did would work for the typical teacher's pay? 

In conclusion, I would like you all to know I love my job.  I don't think anyone else could do as well as I, to be honest, because of my experience and skills that I bring to the classroom.  However, I do see merit pay as a threat to my job, as well as unfair in that I will never, ever, ever qualify for it as it is being proposed, no matter how good I am.  I haven't seen a proposal that would actually work for everyone who teaches, not even for the majority of teachers.  I must oppose merit pay on these grounds.

'Merit pay' is a concept that derives from the world of business. In this context, merit pay leads to increased competitiveness and higher profits (for the most part). This is all good and well within a business context, where the system is designed and thrives on this principal. However, education is not a business. It does not generate money directly. For teaching and learning to be effective requires a longer time-frame and far greater subtlety than could ever be tolerated within a business context. In short, applying the rules of football to a game of baseball will inevitably result in confusion.

Also, as mentioned by another contributor, there are many factors outside of the teacher's control that influence those tests and mechanisms that we use to test teacher and teaching effectiveness. All of these problems, however, may become less distracting when one considers the following example:

I have a very young brother who is in the 3rd Grade. His grades were poor and my parents were dispairing at the ineffectiveness of his school. I sat them down and explained (quite patiently) that perhaps they should get off their backsides and help him with his homework for a change. So they did. In the last three months, my brother's scores have tripled and my parents have finally figured out that a little structure and hands-on help in the education of their child goes a long way.

Perhaps 'merit pay' should be rethought thus: if your child does poorly, it is your fault and you should pay more in school fees to compensate teachers for having to fix your mistakes ;-)

 Debo,

You raise a good point about those responsible for doing the evaluations. Even if, theoretically, the evaluations themselves were internally valid and reliable, if they are not consistently implemented by those evaluating, then they are of little value.

Your evaluation experience was somewhat similar to mine when I was still teaching in the K-12 classroom. We would sign up with Admin as to when we wanted to be evaluated, then create a whiz-bang song-and-dance lesson  to impress her. She would perhaps find a few nitpicky things to point out, and then leave... no substantial feedback at all. These types of evaluations were totally useless and we (teachers) just learned to play the game.

Those in favor of merit pay have a great deal to think about if it is ever to be implemented fairly and consistently.

Honestly, I will say I'm tired of having people who've never spent a day in a classroom think they know how to evaluate me or my worth.  I think our whole system needs to take a step back and re-evaluate how it does business.  We have a man who is a lawyer running our country and who thinks he knows what is best as far as teaching is concerned.  He has never taught, he has never spent a day as a teacher or had to deal with the issues we deal with.  He has no knowledge of what it takes to teach a child who's never had any educational support at home to read. He has no idea what it takes for a child who struggles just to get a meal to focus on learning, but yet he is going to determine how good we all are at our jobs and what our pay should be according to documentation that could very well be skewed. 

I really think it's time for teachers to start standing up and demanding that school districts only allow people with educational backgrounds be on school boards.  It's time for us to take our own expertise seriously and make those around us take our expertise seriously.  I know more about teaching first graders and what first graders need from me than even my principal, yet we just sit back and allow people who've never been in a classroom, who made a choice to not be a teacher and do not understand what being a teacher means to make decisions that effect our livelyhood and more importantly effect our students.

I would welcome a comprehensive approach linking teacher pay to student performance if anyone was generally interested in developing this sort of plan, but the problem is that too many policy makers equate "student performance" with standardized test scores.  Uninformed about education in general, ignorant of the broad goals of this country's public education system, and blind to the absolute lack of validity that most state tests have as a measure of student preparedness to compete in the real world, government leaders prefer catchy phrases to genuine reform.  "Higher pay for higher scores" sounds good, right?  Wrong.  As histroy would demonstrate to anyone who truly cared to investigate, linking teacher pay to student performance on tests does not improve student learning.  This type of system would result in a narrowing of the curriculum, "teaching to the test," more use of rote memorization strategies and a higher likliehood of issues with fraudulent scores. 

Frankly, I'm a little irritated at the assumption here that somehow most teachers out there aren't giving it their all, and if they were bribed a little bit, they'd do a better job.  Here's an idea, how about taking some of this money and paying the kids who do well on the test?  These tests are absolutely painful to read and take, and most students know that their performance has little impact on their own lives.  Why then do we assume that these scores reflect anything about their genuine level of knowledge or learning?  If you truly want reform in public schools:  Step 1, reform the tests so that they actually resemble real-world learning tasks.  Step 2, reward students for putting the best effort into these assessments.  Step 3, start trusting teachers to teach again, rather than shoving ill-advised reform after ill-advised reform down their throats.

I completely agree with tibu720. I didn't vote for this man in the first place but I know several people that battled me against his lack of experience just to be president let alone revising health care and the education system. I'm still working on my teaching degree and endorsement for ESL/Bilingual but I questioned my professors, who voted for him, why they would put someone so inexperienced in the highest office in the land. Would they ever consider a teacher with a year and a half experience to be qualified to be the principal of a school, let alone the Superintendant? How can we vote in a man for president that wasn't even voted in to the senate? (He got in because he got several signatures invalidated on the applications of the other candidates based on minor technicality infractions -- but he did it! He wasn't VOTED in!) But now he's running our economy into the ground, he's taking away our health care, and NOW, he's negating the very FIELD I am planning on teaching! Many of us ESL teachers will be in the same boat MiketeachKC is in -- though we will have the certification for ESL, the test scores of our students will not score in the higher ranges.

If Obama manages to get this passed, no new students will want to go into teaching for any subjects other than the ones on the standardized tests. Special needs students will be left to the most inexperienced teachers, ESL students will be in the same boat. No technical skills will be taught and the blue collar workers of America will cease to exist.

Somebody needs to let him know that he can't have his paws in every bowl because he's doing some SERIOUS damage to this country -- now starting with the littlest people!

 Dear rdedominicia,

I have no quarrel with your opinion of the President; everyone is certainly entitled to her/his own viewpoint in that regard. For example, I had an extremely low opinion of our previous President. I  do, however, question the accuracy of this statement:

"How can we vote in a man for president that wasn't even voted in to the senate? (He got in because he got several signatures invalidated on the applications of the other candidates based on minor technicality infractions -- but he did it! He wasn't VOTED in!)"

"The Illinois United States Senate election of 2004 was held on November 2, 2004. Democraticcandidate Barack Obama defeated Republican candidate Alan Keyes by 70% to 27% in the race to represent Illinois in the United States Senate."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Illin...

or, more likely,you were referring to Obama's election to the Illinois state senate:

"On January 17, 1996, Palmer announced she was withdrawing her bid for re-election because she was a couple of hundred signatures short of the 757 needed to earn a place on the ballot after almost two-thirds of the 1,580 signatures on her nominating petitions were found to be invalid. The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners had previously sustained an objection to the nominating petitions of Lynch because of insufficient valid signatures, and subsequently also sustained objections to the nominating petitions of Askia and Ewell because of insufficient valid signatures.

In the March 19, 1996 primary election, Obama, running unopposed on the ballot, won the Democratic nomination for state Senator for the 13th District. In the November 5 general election, Obama was elected state Senator for the 13th District, winning 82% of the vote; perennial unsuccessful Harold Washington Party candidate David Whitehead received 13% of the vote, and first-time Republican Party candidate Rosette Caldwell Peyton received 5% of the vote."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Senate_career_of_Barack_Obama

If so, I assume you are accusing the Chicago Board of Elections of malfeasance in determining who the Democratic candidate would be. Would you have any support for that claim? Clearly, in the general election, against the Republican candidate, Obama did pretty well, winning 82% of the vote.

Regards,

John

 Dear anonima,

" . . . reform the system . . ."

Do you have any suggestions as to how this should be accomplished?

Thank you,

John

This is a great question.  Being an instructor in a higher education field, we do not obtain merit pay or merit raises as the public school system does.  However, I have to agree with several of the comments that have been made here.

1.  I believe that instructors/teachers should have the accountability standards.  I think the accountability should be a mix of items - mainly based on the information from the "STUDENTS" performance evaluations.

2.  Having an administrative person do the evaluations on the instructors classroom should not be allowed.  Usually the performance evaluations are from the top down meaning the President evals the VPs; the VPs eval the deans; and the deans evals the instructors.  However, if the dean is clueless or is too overwhelmed with the workload, the evals can be harsh when not necessary, or can be too lenient - when they should be detrimental.  Usually it depends on whether the dean likes the instructor to how the evals will go.

3.  I think there should be a bottom-up evaluation for the instructors to be able to evaluate their peers as well as the deans and possibly the VPs.  If there was an evaluation for this, I think some deans would find the difficulty of explaining how some evaluations were biased and how some were not.  I also think the deans or those who do the top down evaluations would be more considerate of those they are evaluating, if they know that the evaluations will come from the bottom up as well.   The bottom up evals should be completed after the top down evals are completed - but before the evaluations are discussed.  This way there is not any discrepancies being disputed on the evaluations.  We all know how we are treated by the top down society.

Is merit pay worth the effort it takes to receive it?  Personally, I live by the rule that I was taught at a very early age "Do the best job for the man that you can, and do it well.  There may be a time when you will have to rely again on that same man."  So if I do my job well each and every day, I should be rewarded for it, but not based on merit.  One bad blemish from a student or an administrative person can mar the performance and the self-esteem of the receiver.

After reading the article on the "school stimulus" from our infamous president, I came to the conclusion that he must not know about the "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" law. This law in essence, placed us where we are today as that students cannot read, write, and do simple math. The NCLB make it where you could not fail a student.

Someone please tell me why if a student makes a 20, you cannot give him a 20? What gives Congress or anyone else the right to decide how we can grade students or what grade they deserve?

Personally, I am fortunate to be in a higher level learning where I do not have to worry about NCLB, as I really do not think I could give a student a 70 when I am clearly looking at a 20 in my gradebook.

Anyone agree or disagree?