There are some public schools in America who have—according to many educators and legislators—gone off the proverbial deep end by employing a system of merit pay. In these systems, teachers' salaries are individually determined by the educator's performance and by their students' performance on high-stakes testing (to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind...but that's for another blog).
As is, in our "average American" school district, teachers are paid based on their highest degree earned and by the number of years in the system. There is no reward for exceptional teaching, and thus many teachers have no incentive to apply themselves fully to the job. Although our principal continually refers to our staff as a "dream team," our mediocre roster is only a "dream" compared to the other abysmal schools in our region. There are some teachers, myself immodestly included, who consistently go above and beyond for our students, and we only do so out of personal pride in our work and out of a concern for our students' well being; we then return home to review online banking statements with too little in the deposit column.
An article in the July 10, 2008 edition of The Economist, however, suggests that something revolutionary is about to occur in DC Public schools. In our nation's capital "teachers are virtually unsackable and paid by seniority. Such incentives attract the lazy and mediocre and repel the talented or diligent." This all sounds familiar. It's clear that this "system needs fundamental reform"—and the new schools chancellor of DC public is lobbying to implement that very change.
Michelle Rhee, the chancellor, will begin the revolution by increasing teachers' starting salaries from $40K to (amazingly) $78K; top teachers would be eligible to earn up to $130K a year. These teachers, of course, would not be eligible for tenure and would be paid according to a combination of merit and students' performance.
Wow. $78K+ actually makes teaching in DC Public somewhat appealing.
Upon reading the article, my husband agreed that this was a step in the right direction—but it would never happen. Unions would never give up their bargaining power: teachers' salaries and job protection.
It saddens and angers me that unions, which are supposed to protect the rights of teachers (and thus indirectly the learning environment), are only interested in self-preservation. This year our school's union representative urged each of us to write to our congressman stating that we teachers were against merit pay. "What if I'm for merit pay?" I asked. Our rep, a thirty-something history teacher that believes watching movies such as Forrest Gump constitutes stellar instruction on American history, replied, "Then don't write at all."
The bottom line is that schools need to be reformed. It's difficult to say where the reform should begin—with teachers, administrators, unions, or parents?—but giving teachers an incentive to excel in their field is a major part of it. Let's see if the unions will allow this necessary reform, and what becomes of DC Public schools in the next few years.
I couldn't agree with you more, Ann, that merit pay is a very good thing for teachers. I too get frustrated with unions that are more concerned with being outside of the system as a force to defy it, instead of working with the system to achieve goals that benefit everyone. Being in a College of Education, I have some direct contact with teachers and future administrators, and one of the most frustrating aspects of being a new teacher or a budding administrator that are trying to introduce new strategies or shake things up a bit, is that the older tenured teachers and administrators want to preserve the status quo. They generally become complacent and stagnant in their teaching and methods, hiding behind the "well I have been doing it this way for X number of years" statement. A good place to start, along with higher pay for additional education, volunteering to go into the toughest or most poorly performing schools, is also to institute merit pay for teachers that complete continuing education credits, similar to what is required for professionals in the medical field. As a psychologist, I will be required to complete a certain number of continuing education credits every year just to keep my license. This could be a way for teachers to earn more pay (or require it for all of them) and will encourage them to incorporate new strategies and methods consistent with what new research has found to be successful. Also, why not develop and implement a system of peer-review per school, so teachers are anonymously reviewing the work of their peers instead of administrators, creating a power imbalance. Success and reward can also be determined by having a baseline assessment of student performance at the beginning of the year, and then measuring improvement by the end of the year - you cannot base success on an arbitrary score because some kids will require 5% improvement to get there, and others will require 50% improvement. So basically there are a lot of potential ways to work on improving our schools beyond the old divisive methods of teachers unions vs. the world...I hope they get to work on some serious solutions soon. For your sake, Ann, and honestly for the future of our country's competitiveness.
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