If the "objective of any reform measure is to increase the potential of the learning environment and facilitate the learning process" then creative ideas that involve changing the configuration and responsibilities of staff members to target their strengths must also be considered -- and should probably be implemented before any conversation about offering teachers more pay to do their jobs.
Other alternatives to merit pay
Alternatives to a merit pay system as a means of stoking educational improvement are not easy to find. Tenure and years of teaching experience are the normal and expected measures used to determine a teacher's salary and it would not appear that this is going away anytime soon. However, there are a paltry few suggestions that will be offered forthwith.
Ten years ago all stakeholders in the Denver Public Schools debated merit pay and the need for reform. In the end a new system of pay was instituted that "stopped paying based on years of service and started recognizing a host of skills and achievements on the job" (Drevitch, 2006). Today's system includes annual raises as well as incentives of up to one thousand dollars for such things as teachers who are working with large numbers of ESL students or handicapped children. There is also a monetary incentive for teachers who enter fields that are difficult to fill such as physics and the higher level math courses. This program that bases at least a portion of a teacher's salary on performance is now being duplicated in a number of states including Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Arizona and North Carolina.
Another alternative that has been proffered in place of merit pay is a teacher incentive plan. "These are agreements between school systems and teachers (unions) which offer teachers an opportunity to bonus pay, contingent upon academic improvement by their students on standardized achievement tests" (Conte, 1972). This again places the responsibility for student achievement squarely on the teachers (which just makes sense!) and at first glance seems only to differ from merit pay in that it is not formally incorporated into a salary schedule. However, this is not entirely true.
In one instance a team of teachers competed against a private firm that had recently come into the schools to improve reading scores. In order for the firm to be paid they had agreed to double students' reading scores over the course of a single year. If they did not achieve this goal they would then forfeit their pay. The teachers were offered a nominal incentive if they were able to do the same thing. In the end, the teachers fulfilled the goal.
A second and final example of incentivized pay for teachers occurred when a group of summer school teachers agreed to improve their students reading over the course of five weeks. If students did not make measurable gains then the teachers would not receive any pay for their time teaching summer school. In the end, the teachers received...
Pay for performance is becoming commonplace in the business world. Pay raises and bonuses are often based on how well one performs on the job or on achieving specific results. However, this is not the case in education. Pay levels are typically based on years of experience and levels of education rather than on teacher effectiveness. As concerns about the quality of the nation's educational systems frequently appear in the
Plus most teachers saw the pay for performance system as inevitable, and therefore wanted to be involved from the start of the plan (Gratz, 2005). The pilot faced many challenges. Not the least, the district was faced with the logistical challenge of linking the students in various databases to the teachers. The internal systems for tracking student progress by teacher simply didn't exist. In addition, non-academic staff members had to
On the other hand, merit pay systems may inspire unhealthy competition among coworkers or excessive peer pressure among teams of workers whose individual performance are measured together. In the worst case scenario, merit pay can result in unscrupulous conduct and undermine the camaraderie in the work environment to a degree that actually affects overall output negatively instead of positively. Certain vocational environments are more likely to benefit from merit pay
The system must measure true performance in a way that minimizes random variation, as well as undesired and unintended consequences. It must align performance with ultimate outcomes and monitor performance to discourage cheating" (p. 88). In fact, Lavy suggests that any initial incentive pay program implementation will likely be flawed in some ways, but gradual progress in achieving a viable program is possible if the foregoing considerations are taken
, 2001). Prior to 1930, thought, little attention was given to pay-for-performance in the public sector in the United States except for the blue-collar, manufacturing functions that were being primarily performed for the military. During this period in American history, government was viewed (and perhaps still is by many) as a competitive threat to private enterprise; as a result, there was not much public support for developing a highly motivated and
Pay for Performance Systems How could an organization measure the effectiveness of their pay-for-performance plans? In principle, organizations could measure the effectiveness of their pay-for-performance plans by establishing objective criteria for defining "effectiveness" and then measuring those criteria before and after implementation of the plan and comparing those results (Kline & Sulsky, 2009). For example, in a general business organization, the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of performance plans might be
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