Considering merit pay . . .

I read a lot about merit pay and the accountability push that we are now seeing to influence implementation of these systems. Though I am not a proponent of such a system, I also do not completely agree with the current system based on experience and education. I don’t have a model to share because I do not want to form my mental model in the absence of teacher voice. Yes, I have some ideas that might become part of some model, but I believe that any model must be developed with teachers in the room. This is not something that business, legislators, or administrators can do and expect to experience success without meaningful opportunities for teachers to influence.

This short article at Education Week by Kent Hickey does a good job of describing why merit pay is not the answer. He shares what he calls four common sense principles that should guide our efforts to improve the quality of teaching. They make sense to me.

*Teaching involves perfecting one’s art not meeting sales quotas.

Merit pay assumes that teachers are motivated to achieve excellence by being paid for each completed item on a checklist. That’s a deeply flawed assumption. For one, money is not the primary motivation for teachers. (Otherwise, they wouldn’t be teachers.) Second, that checklist doesn’t exist, because great teaching isn’t the stuff of checklists.

Producing great teaching is the primary motivation for great teachers. So, create environments that make successful teaching likely, not just possible. . .

*Ineffective teachers should be fired.

I don’t think any of us disagree with this even teacher unions. We haven’t, unfortunately, identified a vehicle to get this done. It doesn’t mean, however, that we can’t and shouldn’t continue to work toward this end. We must find ways to remove those teachers whose colleagues would not place their own children with, without the cost and disruption we currently experience. The reasons for the current reality do not fall in one place. They reside in state law, teacher unions, and we administrators who have not made the tough decisions during the probationary period. Too often our decisions are governed by heart, not a combination of head and heart.

*A teacher’s life requires sacrifices, not a sacrificed life.

Hickey gives some ideas to which I would add the need at the federal level to demonstrate the importance of teachers to our country through tax breaks, interest free loans for learning, reduced rates for home purchases, and . . . let’s put some energy into making the profession one that is attractive instead of the negative portrayal that we currently experience from many in government and leadership positions.

*“We do the most important work in the world.”

Most importantly, treat teachers with dignity. When a school has questions about improving student learning, start by asking the teachers in that building what they think. Our best teachers have always had the best answers. YES!

To these four I would add – let’s figure out what kids need to know and be able to do so that we are not continually faced with revised standards and realigning curriculum. Teachers want to focus on instruction and we want to support this focus through meaningful staff development with feedback and reflection opportunities.