Reader comments
School board approves many merit-pay plans

Could you be any more disrespectful to a professional?

I have spent 15 years teaching for minimum wage in Utah, have my Masters' Degree (that's six years of college), have never had anything during that time but excellent evaluations and have a good rapport with my students. We have fun, but we learn each day.

With all due respect to the State Board of education, I will do my job, the same as I always have and do it for the students. I plan on donating any merit pay I get to the school's PTSA, and will personally match the merit pay dollar for dollar. I do not want to get caught up in a mad scramble over $500. I want to be paid well, I want to be paid fair, and then I would rather not worry about the money, and just do my job. The PTSA needs the extra $500 for one year more than I do, and challenge all teachers to do the same.

I will continue to provide meaningful, rigorous, relevant, educational opportunities, help new teachers, people on my grade level team, and handle all of my professional responsibilities.

I am a professional, not a pet.

Heh, how about we also pass a law saying that parents of troublesome or lazy students be required to pay more to the school to compensate for disrupted and wasted time and resources? "Merit payments for students."

Treat us like 12 year olds.

I'm old enough to remember when teaching was a respected profession.

Glad I'm almost done.

My compliments for your dedication to your profession, but don't you think you're overreacting just a bit? What is it about PROFESSIONAL educators that places them above tawdry concepts like merit pay?

Are PROFESSIONALS in the private sector somehow less professional because they are paid according to merit and assessed based on concrete performance measures?

We're trying to promote excellence here, not critizie your performance. I cannot understand why civil servants interpret merit pay as personal criticism. Get over yourself, and try to acquire a little appreciation for the larger effort here to maximize learning and opportunity for all students, not just those fortunate enough to get naturally high performing teachers.

I understand why my response might be confusing. I think I would be confused if I were on the outside looking in. Before I entered the profession, I thought teachers had an easy gig.

I will try to explain.

Merit pay has been tried many times all over the coutry, and no controlled scientific study has ever found a long-term enhancement of the quality of work as a result of any incentive system. In fact, numerous studies have confirmed that performance on tasks, particularly complex tasks, is generally lower when people are promised a reward for doing them, or for doing them well. As a rule, the more prominent or enticing the reward, the more destructive its effects.

People with more power usually set the goals, establish the criteria, and generally set about trying to change the behavior of those down below. If merit pay feels manipulative and patronizing, that's probably because it is.

The whole enterprise "conveniently moves accountability away from politicians and administrators, who invent and control the system, to those who actually do the work."

The premise of merit pay, and indeed of all rewards, is that people could be doing a better job but for some reason have decided to wait until it's bribed out of them. This is as insulting as it is inaccurate. Dangling a reward in front of teachers or principals�"Here's what you'll get if things somehow improve"� does nothing to address the complex, systemic factors that are actually responsible for educational deficiencies. Pay-for-performance is an outgrowth of behaviorism, which is focused on individual organisms, not systems�and, true to its name, looks only at behaviors, not at reasons and motives and the people who have them.

Even if they wouldn't mind larger paychecks, teachers are typically not all that money-driven. They keep telling us in surveys that the magical moment when a student suddenly understands is more important to them than another few bucks.

Most of all, merit pay fails to recognize that there are different kinds of motivation. Doing something because you enjoy it for its own sake is utterly unlike doing something to get money or recognition. In fact, researchers have demonstrated repeatedly that the use of such extrinsic inducements often reduces intrinsic motivation.

Despite what is widely assumed by economists and behaviorists, some things are more than the sum of their parts, and some things can't be reduced to numbers. It's an illusion to think we can specify and quantify all the components of good teaching and learning, much less establish criteria for receiving a bonus that will eliminate the perception of arbitrariness. No less an authority than the statistician-cum-quality-guru W. Edwards Deming reminded us that "the most important things we need to manage can't be measured."

It's possible to evaluate the quality of teaching, but it's not possible to reach consensus on a valid and reliable way to pin down the meaning of success, particularly when dollars hang in the balance. What's more, evaluation may eclipse other goals. After merit-pay plans take effect, administrators often visit classrooms more to judge teachers than to offer them feedback for the purpose of improvement.

But the problems are multiplied when the criteria are dubious, such as raising student test scores. These tests tend to measure what matters least. They reflect children's backgrounds more than the quality of a given teacher or school.

Moreover, merit pay based on those scores is not only unfair but damaging, if it accelerates the exodus of teachers from troubled schools where they're most needed.

Yah.

I'm working on getting over myself.

I'm trying to acquire a little appreciation for the larger effort here to maximize learning and opportunity for all students....

I'm thankful I don't work in one of those government schools.

I'm thankful I work in a charter school which will not be subjected to convoluted yet woefully inadequate "merit pay".

Don't you think the larger effort to maximize learning and opportunity for all students would be better served by fixing the system?

The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation have spent part of their fortune to study "School Improvement and Best Practices". The money from the state could go towards Lowering Class Size, Forming a College-Going Community in Public High Schools, Rethinking High School, Preparing Students for Success in College, Career and Life, Converting to Small Learning Communities, Charter School Funding, Establishing Multiple Measures Approaches to High School Graduation, Literacy programs, and School-to Work Planning.

The problems in Education are systemic.

This one-time Merit Pay Idea is a cheap fix that will do NOTHING to solve the problems that the Utah School System faces.

It is frustrating that there are Best Practice Solutions out there that other States are using effectively, and Utah's Institutionalized Administrators are blind to proven reform.

Pay teachers well, pay them fair, then get money off their minds so they can do the job. Fix the problems with education in ways that research has shown to be effective.

They continue to choose solutions that are destined to fail such as vouchers and merit pay.

It's just frustrating.

Whoever you are, I'm assuming that you're the same person who posted the four previous comments. I'm sorry that this forum is entirely anonymous because I would love to discuss your critique of merit pay, etc., further.
I agree that teachers should be paid sufficiently to get money out of the picture. I'm also not convinced that the best practices identified by the Gates Foundation are a panacea. These are simply the sort of soft reforms that the Gates Foundation usually endorses and the research on them is mixed at best. Small classrooms appear to improve student outputs, but it is also extremely resource intensive. The findings on small schools and small learning communities are not great. I could go on. I believe that these are all reforms that should be looked at, but I also don't think anything should be taken off the table. What is needed is a resolve to honestly reform education. I think vouchers and merit pay COULD work, but they have never truly been tested; they have always been watered down to appease one faction or another. Nothing should be dismissed outright, because nothing has been proven conclusively effective or ineffective.

Luke Peterson luke_peterson@ksg08.harvard.edu

it's the bottom line folks .. my wife is a master level II teacher ,,, she has NEVER had a state test from her classes -typically middle school grades, science mostly (3 different schools, two different school districts) below the schools average (actually she averages her class test scores 3 to 6 points higher then school average) she has had all ethnic groups, poly, asian, latino ... yet she has been dropped from her school teaching pool because she was the last one in .. therefore first one out (qualifications mean NOTHING - only the bottom line wins in this state for teachers) ... she has been j-passed with 5 strategy's taught in a 50 minute class period (you are lucky to get one or two) .. yet the bottom line wins always .. she will never be accepted as a master teacher under this states way of doing business (she is certified K-12, endorsed in technology (meaning metal, wood, computers), reading, science), she has a master's plus 60 hrs, yet she is dropped from a schools teaching pool - why last one in , first one out .... teacher merit - no, bottom line yes !!

I was just thinking why not just get one of those big money wind machines and get teachers a certain amount of time in the box based on the test schools of the students. That way the students will want to do good so they can watch their teacher scramble for money. Has anyone told this idea to the school board. How do gym teachers get extra money? What about cooking teachers? Are they going to test the students on how many cups of flour goes into a cake? Bring on the wind machine!!!

As a 15 year veteran teacher in Utah, I'm becoming more and more thankful that I had the cunning and agressiveness over the years to lock up as many honors classes as I could get my hands on. If I were a new teacher with classes full of ESL, Special Education, and other "special needs" students I would be out of luck with this Merit Pay game.

Now, someone will post and take me to task for not trying to "maximize the learning and opportunity for ALL students" but phrases like that are just educational mumbo-jumbo to me. I learned a long time ago that in order to pay the bills I had to PLAY THE GAME and that is what I will do with Merit Pay. I can teach to a test. I can brown-nose the administration. I can convince most students that I am wonderful by handing out a few candy bars. I can bamboozle parents at PTC's with sweet talk and empty words. I can severely limit my collaborative efforts with my colleagues and undermine them students, parents, and administration every chance I get. This is how I will play the Merit Pay game. Any takers?

I appreciate your post.

It was one of the most intelligent responses I have ever read in the Des News.

The High School I used to teach at had 4500 students, and we instituted schoolwide SLC reform with Career Pathways and Academies. I don't know if it was perfect, but it was a move in the right direction.

I agree with you, "I believe that these are all reforms that should be looked at, but I also don't think anything should be taken off the table."

My concern is that the Utah System is dysfunctional, and no one seems to care, except for the quick fix band-aid here or there to make it look like something is being done. The problem is that there is too much money in being an adminstrator at the District or State level, and the main concern is maintaining the status quo using misdirection.

Like "playing the game" mentions, it's a game and not a fix. Like I posted earlier, I'm going to donate mine to the PTSA, and do my thing in the classroom until someone in Utah gets serious about educating "their" children.

Professionals in almost every field get paid more based on "merit". Teachers move up in "lock step" as if everyone is equally good at doing the job. As a parent of many children I really appreciated the great teachers they had and wished that they could make more money instead of just the same as those who do not try as hard or do as well. Sure there may be problems with "merit pay" but there are problems with paying everyone the same exact amount also. The only thing I worry about is that whoever determines the "merit" may have even more control over the teachers. The one thing I remember most about being a teacher is being coerced into doing "learning centers" and having all sorts of distracting junk hanging from the ceiling when I had to teach everything in two languages (bilingual Spanish) which was distraction enough. I agree that teachers should earn more, especially more than those in administration who have "desk jobs".

Another method of making teachers jump through hoops', do more work and be judged by an administrator that may or may not like your teaching style and in the end get little or no money. Why not use the money to give all teachers a cost of living raise therefore, attracting more to the "profession". Just keep giving those overpaid administrators more ammo to bully and intimidate teachers. I hope the public and upcoming young teachers take note of what is really going on inside education circles here in Utah. There is a reason for a record shortage and it goes way beyond pay. A sad little job...teaching!!