Alaska has a merit pay system for teachers, but teachers don’t think much of it. In fact, one local school staff here even turned down the money in 2007. It’s the school my own kids attended.
As it happens, many Houston teachers – the same ones Obama mentioned in his speech – feel the same, says HISD teacher, Laura Taylor:
Obama gave two examples of school districts already doing this, one being the district that I teach in, Houston Independent School District (HISD). The largest school district in Texas, HISD has been at the forefront of using standardized test scores to determine bonuses.
Given this, you might expect merit pay and standardized testing to be universally effective and accepted within HISD. In reality, they are anything but.
In this economy, it’s difficult for any person to turn down extra money. Yet a survey done by HISD right after bonuses were awarded in January found that only 45 percent of teachers and other school employees liked the system.
Every year, it seems, the HISD administration rolls out yet another version of ASPIRE, the program that determines these bonuses. And every year, confusion and frustration reigns among teachers.
Though the district pours in money for professional development to explain the program, the merit pay “awards” still feel arbitrary to many teachers. As Houston Federation for Teachers President Gayle Fallon told the Houston Chronicle, “They’re still comparing it to winning the lottery.”
Part of what makes the system so controversial is the tremendous amount of bonus money that goes to principals and administrators.
For the most recent round of bonuses, School Superintendant Abelardo Saavedra gave himself the largest, paying himself $77,500 out of a possible $80,000, in addition to his annual salary of $327,010. The next highest paid were executive principals, many earning bonuses of well over $10,000. Teachers who did earn a bonus got nowhere near that amount. And more than 2,100 eligible employees earned nothing.
She has more to say about what motivates teachers, and the unintended consequences of the bonus pay policy.
The system here in Alaska works differently than theirs. Ours is a share-and-share-alike system, with all the personnel in a building sharing the bonus money. Certified staff get up to $5,000, and classified staff members get up to $2500, but nobody can tell you what the formula is for determining who wins. I’ve never heard whether admins get anything.
Still, as the parent of students at the “winning” school, a school that is located near the university and has the highest percentage of families with PHD’s, I thought the parents were being overlooked at the time. And as a staff member of a Title I school that posted dramatic double-digit test score gains for our African American students that same year, there was some unspoken resentment. So we applauded the teachers who refused to accept the money.
These plans are arbitrary and divisive. It is money down a rat hole. Just like another, bigger rat hole we’ve been throwing money at more recently. If we’re going to have a differentiated pay system, it needs to be more intelligently implemented.
4 Comments
Doug,
Merit pay has not yet become a reality in my district. I appreciate your starting the conversation and sharing two – very different – systems (?) for distributing the bonus rewards.
I’m wondering if Alaska sought teacher input, via a committee, survey, etc., before implementing the system.
From California,
Gail Desler
Gail, the short answer is no; teacher input was not requested. We didn’t want it. We don’t care about it. Nothing has changed on account of it.
How have other well-known models fared among teachers? I’m thinking in particular about Denver Pro-Comp and TAP? Pro-Comp hit some bumps in the road last year–but what about TAP?
Another interesting model is the Benwood Initiative in Chattanooga, TN. That initiative mixes a mild form of merit pay with support for teachers. An Education Sector report some time ago found that the surrounding supports were at least as effective–if not more effective–than the incentives. That said, I’m not sure that the incentives were unpopular among teachers: http://www.publicschoolinsights.org/node/2218.
Claus, I can’t say how well other models have worked. First of all, we’d have to answer the question, ‘Toward what end?’ I can only say that there is ZERO discussion about merit pay for testing outcomes among my colleagues. We’ve discussed differential pay for various job-related challenges, like for every kid assigned to a teacher over a certain number, for chronic behavior problems, for taking on extra duties, etc.
I can’t recall anyone in a policy-making position asking teachers what they want, when they set up the system. Extra supports might work, but if they were contingent on test results, I wouldn’t be interested.
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