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Merit Pay

Radical Rhee and the so-called education “reform” movement

The trend of blaming teachers for the problems in education probably won’t fall out of favor any time soon. During School Choice Week, so-called education “reformers” will do their best to scapegoat teachers instead of acknowledging the real systemic problems — such as school funding and poverty — that lead to poor performance and problems in education. For Rhee, and other so-called reformers, well-established facts confirming the correlation between poverty and the achievement gap don’t matter. Continue reading →

CNN Story on Teacher Pay and Test Scores Misleads Readers

Yesterday CNN’s blog, Schools of Thought, posted a story on teacher evaluations entitled, “Ohio links teacher pay to test scores.“ While not categorically untrue, this blog seriously misleads by simplification. The writer suggests that teacher evaluation legislation is sudden and the result of Governor Kasich’s efforts, when in fact, the development of a framework and [...] Continue reading →

Alternatives to merit pay

A newly released report highlights incentives that can be much more effective in attracting and retaining quality teachers than simple merit pay programs. The report shows how merit pay programs that reward teachers based on their students’ standardized test scores do little to improve student achievement and offers information on other incentives that could be more successful. Learn more at www.greatlakescenter.org. Continue reading →

State tests could be one of the criteria for both “merit pay” and any salary increases

I have never wanted to be anything but a teacher. My childhood stuffed animals were regularly lined up, waiting to hear a story or learn about words or numbers. Teaching dance and music lessons in high school helped to pay for college where my dream would come true and I would become a music teacher. [...] Continue reading →

Chicago’s teacher performance-based pay didn’t work

A study released Tuesday by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. about a Chicago program that contains performance-based compensation for teachers, shows no evidence that the program boosted student achievement on math and reading tests, compared with a group of similar schools that did not use the performance-based compensation system, Education Week reported. The study also found [...] Continue reading →