“What’s Wrong With Merit Pay”

Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier write an insightful blog for Education Week called Bridging Differences. They write their posts in the form of letters back and forth to each other, arguing like educated, rational humans about topics in education. Recently up was a letter from Diane Ravitch to Deborah Meier about merit pay [...]

Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier write an insightful blog for Education Week called Bridging Differences. They write their posts in the form of letters back and forth to each other, arguing like educated, rational humans about topics in education.

Recently up was a letter from Diane Ravitch to Deborah Meier about merit pay for teachers: What’s Wrong With Merit Pay. Ravitch had some excellent points about the teacher compensation reform issue, most of which are along the same lines as my own view on the subject, but she adds a whole extra layer of nougat-y goodness to the argument against merit pay:

There are several reasons why it is a bad idea to pay teachers extra for raising student test scores:

*First, it will create an incentive for teachers to teach only what is on the tests of reading and math. This will narrow the curriculum to only the subjects tested.

*Second, it will encourage not only teaching to the test, but gaming the system (by such mechanisms as excluding low-performing students) and outright cheating.

*Third, it ignores a wealth of studies that show that student test scores are subject to statistical errors, measurement errors, and random errors, and that the “noise” in these scores is multiplied when used to make high-stakes personnel decisions.

*Fourth, it ignores the fact that most teachers in a school are not eligible for “merit” bonuses, only those who teach reading and math and only those for whom scores can be obtained in a previous year.

*It ignores the fact that many factors play a role in student test scores, including student ability, student motivation, family support (or lack thereof), the weather, distractions on testing day, etc.

*It ignores the fact that tests must be given at the beginning and the end of the year, not mid-year as is now the practice in many states. Otherwise, which teacher gets “credit,” and a bonus for score gains, the one who taught the student in the spring of the previous year or the one who taught her in the fall?

Posted by Alexa Harrington

image credit: max klingensmith

Read more ...