Merit pay for teachers is back in vogue in certain political circles these days. On the surface the argument seems like a no-brainer. Shouldn’t we reward good teachers with higher pay, just as we reward overachieving workers in private industry with more money?
Delve below the surface and the simplicity of the merit pay argument becomes far more complex. After all, what is a good teacher? Virtually all of the proposals from the political sector define a good teacher through student test scores on state mandated tests. Even if you have little knowledge of how these state tests work, you likely know that the tests are given once a year and that they do not even pretend to measure the progress or growth of a single student over the course of a year. Comparisons of state test scores in a single grade or a single classroom can—at best—only show how that subset of students compared to a large group of similar students on a particular day when a narrow and simplistic measure was used.
The proposals for merit pay all exist within the confines of the current and deeply flawed system. We all agree that there are awful teachers being rewarded for merely showing up and that there are great teachers not being rewarded for going the extra mile. However, using state test scores as the arbiter of a good teacher will not result in a merit pay for teachers who actually excel at their work.
Since teachers can’t pick the students coming into their class, and since the ability and background of students can and does vary widely from class to class, it isn’t logical to compare state test scores either from year to year or from a subset of the total to overall averages. Given the way state tests work, and given the ways in which students are assigned to teachers, linking teacher evaluations to scores would be the same as using a lottery to evaluate their performance. A teacher given a particularly advanced (academically or otherwise) class one year would be lucky, but a teacher assigned kids who are a challenge that same year would be out of luck. In fact, in many districts it is the excellent teachers who are assigned the most challenging students because they have the skills to handle the academic, social, family, physical and emotional baggage that comes with a challenging student. However, those students typically don’t do well on state tests. The implication for merit pay based on state test scores should be obvious.
Even if we changed state tests to evaluate the same child at the start and the end of a school year, would that allow us to fairly use scores as the basis for merit pay? A child with a great and effective teacher can still be hampered by the divorce of parents, or a vision problem not caught early, or a bad cold on test day, or a thousand other issues. Again, the teacher is caught in a game of chance if merit pay is to be based on test scores. Plus, what would merit pay based on state test scores do to the way teachers operate in their classroom? If we pay more for better scores aren’t we asking teachers to concentrate on teaching to the test and to focus their energy primarily on the students most likely to achieve good scores? What we would be doing is setting up a system in which teachers would compete internally for the “easy” students and in which any classroom time spent on areas unrelated to test preparation will likely result in lower pay! Is that what we want?
If merit pay for teachers is ever possible, it will require wholesale change in the way schools are run and the elimination of the labor union/factory model of education which has polluted public education. Don’t blame the teacher unions, though; blame all of the federal law enacted from the 1935 National Labor Relations Act onward which has created coercive monopolies like the teacher unions. Teachers are required to pay into their unions, which creates political power far greater than would otherwise exist. The reason we have inflexible teacher contracts, the reason we have the impossibility of individual negotiation with great teachers and the reason we have to suffer the work of poor teachers with tenure is not because of the unions, but because of federal law which artificially props up teacher unions. Take away collective bargaining and agency shop rules and a whole new world opens up.
It is pure fantasy to imagine a successful merit pay scenario in today’s public schools. In fact, it is questionable if a bonus pay sort of system for teachers is good idea under any circumstance. Genuinely effective teachers—?the ones who are requested by anxious parents and who administrators lean on when the going gets rough—are typically not motivated by more money. If you are familiar with Herzberg’s motivation hygiene theory, as well as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, then you are well on your way to understanding the motivation of truly effective teachers.
If you give it some thought, you’ll realize that the teachers you don’t want for your child are the very ones who are primarily motivated by money, and summers off and easy schedules. The truly good teachers–the ones you want for your own children–have intrinsic motivation related to the satisfaction of their jobs and their interaction with children. They need and want enough money to support themselves and to maintain a reasonable lifestyle, of course, but their primary motivation is the value of their work. We could pay them enough to get by or we could pay them like royalty and the quality of their work would be the same. They love their work, they love their students and they will not compromise their performance as long as they can afford to make a living. Not so with other teachers who chose their profession based on perceptions of an easy job.
We must be careful what we wish for. The law of unintended consequences can never be ignored in economics. If we set up a merit pay system (bonuses based on almost anything) we will be encouraging exactly the wrong type of teacher to stay in their position and we will be attracting exactly the wrong kind of teacher to the profession. If, instead, we figure out how to empower teachers in their own classroom, and we reward them with more responsibility, and we allow them to hone their craft instead of following a script, then we will find that a decent, living wage is all that is required for pay and that the right sort of teachers will be attracted to the profession. Needless to say, this will also require a sea-change in the types of administrators running our schools and the expertise we seek in those positions. Nobody said it would be easy.
I’m saddened by the Sara Palin phenomenon—but not for the reasons most pundits of any political persuasion would cite. What I find disheartening is how national debates in our modern era manage to entangle multiple issues together in a mess of truth and half-truth, implication, and search for political gain. So often important points which might improve our national character are lost in this entanglement and minor distractions are raised to a level of importance which is undeserved.
When Sarah Palin was picked to be John McCain’s running mate there was an initial surge of hope from many who did not yet know her but who were pleased to see an apparently strong-willed and capable woman in this spot. The potential was there, it seemed, to break another social barrier. Here, finally, was a young woman, and a mother of young children, chosen for a position of national stature. She was also unquestionably attractive, which might break another social barrier that seems to stop pretty woman from pursuing anything unrelated to their beauty in some way. In a sense, this choice for presidential running mate might have been a feminist breakthrough and a victory for social change.
Alas, when Ms. Palin opened her unscripted mouth, objective observers were crestfallen because the potential was obviously not to be fulfilled. Yet, the Palin phenomenon was just getting started. Politicians of all varieties and political stripes are not generally known for their high intellect and certainly scores of them on the national stage have foot-in-mouth disease. Even Palin’s opponent Joe Biden is well known for it. So, as Palin revealed the gaps in her knowledge and political experience she did not serve her case, but she is also in good political company.
The galvanizing process was just beginning, though. It was more than just democrats versus republicans. The presidential race was the frame for this debate, but the often unstated arguments for and against Palin were as much about other things.
The TV talking heads—especially women—were vicious and catty in their condemnation of Palin. Talk shows and comedy sketch shows might start with a point about Palin’s lack of experience, but their communication frequently veered off toward the language of high-school clique members who resent the pretty cheerleader dating the captain of the football team. For anyone at all concerned about the status of women in our society it was more disturbing to watch female news anchors acting in this way than to watch Palin melt under the heat of a national spotlight. Palin was not ready for her new role—but what defense for woman anchors and pundits who were essentially condemning Palin simply for being an attractive woman or for being a mother?
Undoubtedly there was and is an undercurrent of “male chauvinist pigs” that cannot bear the thought of any woman in a leadership role or a mother not home with her kids, but the idea that women themselves would denounce Palin in ways so sexist and ignorant is difficult to square with the progress we have supposedly made as a society.
As time wore on the Palin reputation hardened, along with the attitudes of right and left politics. The popularity of Palin’s book might be explained in strictly political terms, as legions of republicans backed their former candidate against the continuing cries of the democrats. But, would that explain all of the books sales? One must assume that some part of it can be explained by men and women who identify with Palin’s family and work background, and her underdog status. And, some part of it may be that there are folks in our society who want a woman to win at this game for once.
Now we find that Palin has signed on with the right-leaning Fox television network to provide commentary. That is probably a shame because it only furthers the intermingling of right and left politics with the issues of women in our society.
What I wish is that we could have recognized both that Palin was not ready for prime time and that, as a woman—a beautiful woman and a mother—she has equal prerogative to a man to pursue a leadership role without having to justify herself. I regret that the stereotype of pretty, stupid women has been reinforced. I don’t blame Palin for trying, though. I blame the tenor of the people acting on our national stage who have shown themselves to be more ignorant than Palin.
The recent controversy over some Burlington, NJ school children being taught to sing a song praising President Obama during Black History Month is illustrative of a dangerous trend in American thought processes. Of course, Black History Month is a subject all unto itself, but we’ll leave that be for the moment. Instead, simply consider the idea of school children being taught a song to praise the current sitting president.
Students in a public school classroom are a captive audience and have little choice but to observe the conditions and lessons put forth by the classroom teacher, who is backed by the school system, which is backed by various local, state and federal authorities. For this very reason there have been previous debates and legal decisions about religious expression in classrooms. There are those who still wish for prayer or for other religious sentiments to be officially expressed or condoned in public classrooms, but our legal system has fairly clearly established that the line of separation for church and state must extend down to classrooms where young students are forced by law to be—a captive audience which cannot be subjected to religious views supported by the state.
The controversy over these Burlington public school students is owed in some part to those who are upset over the political tones in the songs. In other words, for many the problem isn’t so much that students are singing the praises of the president, but that they are singing the praises of this president. That’s a shame, because that view obscures a more important point, namely, that students should not be asked to praise any sitting president or government.
An Associated Press article about this incident had a quote which put a dagger point on it. The AP quoted former National Guardsman Chris Concannon:
“It’s just like the Hitler Youth all over again. They should be learning history, but instead they’re being taught to worship the president.”
While it may seem over the top to compare what was very likely an innocently prepared song about the current American president to an aspect of Nazi Germany, the principle is the same even if the scale is not. Indoctrination is a very real threat, and there is no where to run when you are captive audience in an elementary school classroom. Again, the focus shouldn’t be on this president, but on the idea of asking students to sing the praises of any president. These students were certainly not being abused in the manner of Hitler Youth, but liberty is lost by small steps in the wrong direction.
My concern is not even for these particular elementary students, who will likely soon forget their little ditty. My concern is that the educators involved, who were probably sincere, had no inkling that this might not be such a hot idea. That is the problem, really, that too many of those in positions such as this do not have the wherewithal to understand why and how it is wrong to ask a captive audience of students to sing the praises of a sitting president. If that is the case, then the process of entropy could, in time, dissolve the bands of liberty which have kept us together as a nation. If we do not stop these small steps in the wrong direction, it isn’t inconceivable to think that one day we will have our American students singing the praises of our “dear leader” just as they do today in North Korea.
With opposition to the Obama health care initiative becoming more vocal, there are sometimes hysterical comparisons, voiced by opponents, to Nazi-led Germany or to Soviet Russia. These comparisons are rooted in the belief that the health care proposals are leading us down a socialist or fascist path, but what I find remarkable and concerning is how these concerns are voiced.
There is no question that many of the proposed government interventions into the health care marketplace are statist in nature. We could pick them apart and argue whether they are socialist in make-up, where the government retains both ownership and direction of the entities, or whether they are fascist in make-up, where the ownership remains private but the direction is by government fiat. Whether of these or of other constructions, many of the proposed initiatives are clearly headed in a statist direction and away from the capitalism and freedom that the United States never seems to fully embrace.
I suppose it is fortunate that there are some citizens who instinctively recognize that these initiatives are wrong on some level, be it moral-ethical, or political or merely practical. What I find remarkable, though, is the decided lack of knowledge and language on the part of opponents to more effectively dismiss claims by politicos that the federal government is the answer to perceived problems in health care. When opponents use imagery from Nazi-led Germany or Soviet Russia to make a point about the danger of government involvement, they are resting on what little knowledge they have about statist government. Unfortunately, this low level of knowledge has led to Nazism and fascism becoming synonymous, just as Soviet style communism has become synonymous with socialism. Nazi and Soviet history is tied up with brutal physical repression and infamous, power-hungry men. While statism often, if not inevitably, leads in this direction, this historical imagery obscures what are more subtle and more critical arguments against government involvement in health care. In other words, it isn’t that opponents who invoke these images are wrong, it is that they shouting when a whisper would be more effective.
My concern is that generations of Americans have been so mis-served and mislead by public education and by private and public higher education, that they no longer possess the historical background, the political theory, the economic theory or even the necessary language to put together effective arguments against statist initiatives. Unquestionably we have a long history of citizens using over-the-top rhetoric, half-truths, rumors and other demagoguery to foment resistance. In our founding days we had newspapers printing what would later be known as the Federalist papers, and we had Thomas Paine publishing his Common Sense. But, we also had the Sons of Liberty and plenty of other citizen-groups who communicated in less informed ways. That was a long time ago. One would hope that our level of discourse would improve and not degrade.
In the twentieth century statism had its day in the sun, and wherever it reached its purist form it withered from the heat and the light. Intellectual opposition to statism reached a zenith perhaps in the middle of the century, even though it would not be until the 80s that full collapse of the big statist systems would occur. I think perhaps in the middle years of the century, before the communist hysteria came about, is when common citizens were most learned and wary about the dangers of statism. A wonderful book by Henry Hazlett, Economics In One Lesson, came out in 1946 and aimed to educate readers on simple economic tenets, such as unintended consequences and the logical outcome of catering to interest groups. It is that simple, almost folk-wisdom kind of economics and political theory which I think was more widespread in that time versus today.
To be sure, the debates over political-economic systems have never ended, but today I believe there is just not the level of engagement which was once found in the so-called common man. There is a visceral understanding of capitalism inherited from generations ago, but we now lack the scholarly heft to back up this instinct. And so, instead of pulling apart the Obama health care initiative on the basis of specific capitalist principles, on the effect of unintended consequences, on the history of statist interventions in this and other countries, or a myriad of other detailed arguments, we witness opponents merely shouting comparisons to Nazi and Soviet horrors.
Today it seems that most accept without question that government is the solution to one perceived problem or another, including healthcare. Now we are just arguing about the nature of the government intervention or program. For those of us who still want to talk about why the government should be seen as the solution at all, we have very few to talk to! With each new generation there is less and less learned about the American principles which were born out of the enlightenment. How many students ever encounter Locke or Smith, or Bacon, or Spencer or even Hazlett in their years at one school or another? I wonder whether the vestiges of what started as a very different American republic, the threadbare fabric of capitalism and freedom, will be strong enough to withstand the continuing onslaught of statism.
As I predicted, the linking of test scores to teacher pay is accelerating under the continued federalization of our schools. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is pushing to withhold federal education money from states that do not link teacher pay to teacher evaluations based on student standardized test scores, or, as the euphemism goes: student achievement data. There are multiple ironies here, not the least of which is that a democratic executive branch is now the prime mover behind this idiocy, even though the teacher unions who supported Obama fought and continue to fight against linking pay to scores.
Another irony is that in other areas of endeavor there is press about de-linking pay based on poor measures of performance. Consider this article about a New York hospital which pays doctors a competitive salary, but avoids linking their compensation to the number of procedures or tests performed. Healthcare costs in this hospital (Bassett Healthcare) are lower in large part because doctors are paid to make people well, rather than to ratchet up the number of procedures and tests. The atmosphere is said to be more collegial and to favor continuity for patient care, instead of pitting physicians against patients and each other for the sake of making a living.
Yet, in the realm of education our federal government is dead-set on going the opposite direction. No matter if Clinton, Bush or Obama is at the helm, the direction is the same: use simplistic and seriously flawed standardized test scores as a measure of student learning and educator performance. Arne Duncan is quoted decrying the firewall some states have put up between teachers and so-called “student data.” No doubt these firewalls will come down soon enough under the unyielding pressure of federal money.
As this trend of ignorant politicians grabbing control of public schools continues, authentic learning in our classrooms will only continue to nosedive. Politicians at every level of government have to latched on to the idea that they can use public education as another means of enhancing their career path. The “student data” numbers are easy to manipulate for a variety of arguments and play well to the traditional press, most of whom are as ignorant as the politicians on these matters.
The more we direct public education through high-stakes standardized test scores, the less public education will be about genuine scholarship for students or professional accountability for educators. By linking teacher pay to test scores, we are merely turning teachers into proctors. They will profit by encouraging memorization, test-prep and crude classroom experience for students. They will suffer by encouraging thoughtful study, reflective processes, and complex, detailed classroom experience for children.