School Reform - Merit Pay

Lots of ideas are circulating about how to reform education. Some deserve more attention than others while some ideas simply will do more harm than good. Among the more prominent ideas are; longer school days, reducing the influence of unions, merit pay, getting rid of tenure, smaller class size, increasing charters/selective schools, teacher effectiveness and more.

In the past I have discussed longer school days and devoting more time to instruction. There are a number of schools where students attend classes six hours during the day. Students in this environment could certainly use more time in the classroom.

A number of people, among them government officials, want to see merit pay. Some citizens are also demanding merit pay as a means of improving teacher and learner performance. Let me provide some reasons for not bringing merit pay into the equation in terms of improving learning.

First of all, plenty of studies have been done that indicate that when people work for pay their performance doesn't improve; rather, it actually becomes less effective.

Also, the idea of merit pay is tied to test scores. The rationale goes like this...improved student test scores should be rewarded with higher pay. The problem with this thinking is that there are too many variables that affect test scores, more importantly learning, that lie outside of the control of the teacher. For example, on other occasions, in this blog, I have discussed the home and community environment at length relative to its affects on learning.

Student learning is partly, and rightly, based upon teacher effectiveness. I have witnessed great teachers, on a daily basis, who are terrific in many regards. Their dedication, preparedness, and effectivness are truly terrific. The problem is that these qualities can't be measured in dollars. The merit of their work quite simply can't be quantified like some equation.

Tying test scores to merit pay for teachers is an ill thought out idea and should not be part of improving instruction and student learning. There are other ideas that can better address these two factors. I'll address these in the days to come.

Thanks,
Dick