Merit Pay Again Questioned by NEA

Merit pay for effective teachers is once again derided by the NEA at its annual convention in Philadelphia.

Most merit pay proposals are linked to test scores, admittedly a less than optimum measure for teacher effectiveness, but right now there is no other way to objectively measure teacher effectiveness. While I have been looking for ways to better define quality teachers and looking for ways to better measure effectiveness, the fact is that merit pay is either going to be based upon test scores (although I think improvement rates raher than straight test scores would be a better measure) or upon some subjective criteria more prone to politics and personality rather than some verifiable data.

But at the same, we need to find some measures of effectiveness. This particular anecdote from the Baltimore Sun simply annoyed me.

Deborah Torres-Gore, who teaches second and third grades in Fontana, Calif., said other factors must be considered when judging the effectiveness of teachers.

"When I look into the eyes of a student who I have taught in the past - or I stand at the door in the morning, and my students say, 'Mrs. Gore, I love you,' or 'Mrs. Gore, You're such a good teacher' - am I effective or not? I think I'm effective," she said.

I am glad that this teacher's students love her, or at least one or two. But that doesn't make her an effective teacher--it might make her a nice person, but we can award bonuses for being a nice person.

There are of course some options, but those options carry consequences that might not sit well with teachers.

Teachers say they would prefer a system that tracks individual students. However, once you measure that, you can't ignore which teachers are moving their students along well, says Ross Wiener, who oversees policy issues at Education Trust, a Washington-based group that advocates for poor and minority children.

"There are huge differences in the effectiveness of individual teachers," Wiener said. "You have to be able to look at growth measures at the classroom level, so principals and other administrators understand which classrooms are accelerating student learning and which ones aren't."

Sandi Jacobs, vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonpartisan Washington group, said that measuring teacher effectiveness, and paying educators accordingly, would bring public education in line with other professions.

So, if as I have proposed, we track students individually, we can also begin tracking teachers individually and what will we do when we see some teachers consistently performing well and those who are not. Well I will tell your the first excuse that will come out is that "I have more poor students, or more minority students, or more learning disabled students than other teachers." So we could control for such factors that then what?

The comments by Ms. Jacobs are telling as well, but the immediate reaction is:

But teachers say their profession is unlike others.

"They're looking at this as if we're manufacturing automobiles," said Sandy Hughes, who teaches high school English, French and Latin near Chattanooga. "With children, you're working with unique individuals."

The reality of the sitatuion as it stands is that the NEA is more interested, on a national level, to bash the current system that actaully give input. For a body that routinely negotiates away pay and other benefits in the interest of maintaining a socialistic Pay-for-time, scenario, the union seems just a little out of touch.

Mike Antonucci has terrific coverage of the NEA convention, go check it out.