Andrea Neal suggests that merit pay should be given a chance in Indiana schools:
Raise the possibility of merit pay for teachers and the gut reaction of many – most members of the teachers union – is negative. As one 30-year educator from Muncie wrote me after last week’s column on this subject, “Basing teacher pay on performance just doesn’t work as long as human beings are involved.”
This fascinates me. Why are teachers expected to be so different from those in most other professions, where salary is tied to some measure of quality of work? There's nothing inherent in education that prevents schools from measuring, somehow, how well teachers do in the classroom. I constantly hear teachers going on about how important it is to "make a difference" in children's lives, yet there's this overwhelming resistance to assessing just how much of a difference teachers can make.
The Teacher Advancement Program developed by the Milken Family Foundation offers a comprehensive assessment of teachers - and doesn't leave out the areas of training:
The Teacher Advancement Program doesn’t merely tie student test scores to teacher salary; it is a comprehensive effort to make teachers better, says its executive director Lewis C. Solmon. Its four main ingredients are:
Career paths. In the typical school, the quickest way for teachers to make more money is to move into management. TAP sets up a career leader so teachers can pursue positions of Mentor Teacher and Master Teacher, which mean greater responsibility and higher pay.
Professional development. TAP restructures the school day to give teachers time to learn, plan, mentor and share. Teachers spend much of the time practicing instructional techniques found to be most effective with the most children. Schools focus their attention initially on the subject area in which students in their building tested lowest.
Regular evaluation. In the typical school, a teacher’s boss observes in the classroom one day a year as part of an annual review. TAP requires four to eight evaluations, most of them unannounced, by the principal and trained professionals who assess the teachers on 14 skills related to effective teaching.
Performance-based pay. TAP ends the current single salary schedule in which all teachers get the same pay based on degrees and years of experience. Instead, it rewards teachers for roles and responsibilities, performance in the classroom, and gains made by their students (not passage rates) as demonstrated by standardized test scores.
The idea of merit pay is gaining steam, and it looks like California is set to be the next big battleground.
Posted by kswygert at March 1, 2005 10:15 AM