During his acceptance speech at Invesco Field, Barack Obama said:
Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education.
As a teacher who's married to a teacher, this line drew smiles at my house.
To say that Barack Obama and John McCain differ on their views concerning education would be a terrible understatement. But to someone who doesn't work in the field of education, it could get quite confusing. So in this diary (and hopefully subsequent diaries) I will be comparing the education policies of the two candidates.
Today's topic will be the controversial and misunderstood issue of merit pay.
By definition, merit pay is performance-related compensation. Many businesses and corporations use merit pay to reward their employers for progress or achievement. The underlying intention is to create competition among employees thereby inspiring them to work harder. In the field of education, merit pay has long been floated by conservatives as a way to raise teacher quality by tying the incentives to student success which is most often demonstrated in the form of test scores.
John McCain supports merit pay as it is traditionally understood.
John McCain will devote 60 percent of Title II funding for incentive bonuses for high performing teachers to locate in the most challenging educational settings, for teachers to teach subjects like math and science, and for teachers who demonstrate student improvement. Payments will be made directly to teachers. Funds should also be devoted to provide performance bonuses to teachers who raise student achievement and enhance the school-wide learning environment. Principals may also consider other issues in addition to test scores such as peer evaluations, student subgroup improvements, or being removed from the state's "in need of improvement" list.
emphasis mine
Even though he says "in addition to test scores," it's obvious that test scores are the main focus.
Using "teh Google," it would appear that Barack Obama supports merit pay, as well. In fact, there are many people that I know personally who believe that Obama supports merit pay. He was even booed by the National Education Association at this year's representative's assembly for mentioning the subject. But let's take a look at just exactly what Obama's position on merit pay is.
From his website:
Reward Teachers: Obama will promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. Districts will be able to design programs that reward accomplished educators who serve as a mentor to new teachers with a salary increase. Districts can reward teachers who work in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well.
And in his own words:
Clearly, this is a different position than the one supported by John McCain. Although, I have been critical of Senator Obama in the past for not making his position more clear. I believe it would behoove him to even ditch the term merit pay and replace it with something less controversial.
Now some of you may be asking yourselves:
"Why is merit pay so controversial? If the teachers are producing positive results, they should be rewarded for it."
This is a question I've answered many, many times. Allow me to explain.
Merit pay can lead to dishonesty - In the early nineties my wife and I worked in the Aldine Independent School District (AISD) in Houston, TX. AISD was the neighbor district to the Houston Independent School District (HISD) where former secretary of education Rod Paige was serving as superintendent. At this time, the state of Texas operated under a quasi-merit pay system. If school districts did well on their statewide standardized tests, administrators were paid a bonus. After initial results were favorable showing dramatic improvements in student performance, it was discovered that there was widespread cheating in order to artificially inflate student scores. People will do most anything for money.
Who gets paid? - This is a real question when it comes to merit pay based on test scores. To understand why this is a question, one must understand that students are not tested in every subject or at every grade level. NCLB requires that students be tested in the fourth, eighth, and eleventh grades in the subjects of reading, math, and science. Consequently, not all grade levels or subjects are tested. So if the incentive pay is tied to test scores why would anyone want to teach a grade other than fourth, eighth, or eleventh? Nobody would want to teach kindergarten if they knew they wouldn't be eligible for the bonuses. And what of the other subjects like music, art, physical education, etc? Why would anyone want to teach a subject where they wouldn't be eligible to earn any incentives? If incentives are based on whether or not students meet the standards on a particular test it would only make sense that everyone would want to teach the higher level students. For instance, everyone would want to teach Calculus and nobody would want to teach the remedial math classes. And this says nothing of those who teach special education.
Furthermore, an eleventh grader's success on a standardized test is due in large part to far more than just one teacher. This student has had multiple teachers throughout his or her educational career. Sometimes these teachers have come from more than one school. Will all of these teachers be compensated? Even the teachers who don't teach a tested subject?
Merit pay can be detrimental to education - Much like NCLB, merit pay causes schools and educators to focus their attention on those who need the most help while neglecting the students who are already capable of passing the exams. Consequently, no child gets left behind but no child gets ahead either.
How is progress measured? - Progress is movement toward a goal, but in education the students being measured will be different each year. This year's eighth graders are not the same as last year's eighth graders. So what constitutes progress? Is it progress if this year's eighth graders performed better on a standardized test than they did last year as seventh graders? What if they didn't test as seventh graders? Or what if they took a different test as seventh graders? OR is it progress only if this year's eighth graders performed better on a standardized test than last year's eighth graders on the same test? If so, does it matter that it's a different group of students?
Each of these issues poses a problem when it comes to merit pay for teachers. However, conservatives will tell you that merit pay has worked in places like Colorado. But what they fail to mention is that the Colorado merit pay system, called ProComp, is a system that was negotiated with the cooperation of the teacher's association and the public schools. If that sounds familiar, it's because it's similar to the plan offered by Senator Obama. (See youtube clip above.)
So there it is. That's merit pay in a nutshell. I hope this is helpful to those of you who may have been confused about the subject. I'm going to take much of the information in this diary and compose a letter to the editor of my local paper. I hope that many others will as well. Please feel free to use any of the information I have provided here. I think that this is one of many important educational issues that the public needs to be educated on prior to voting in the November election.