Editor's Note: Today I am pleased to feature a guest post from Dr. Howard Risher, continuing the discussion Jim Brennan and I began about merit pay in public education. Like me, Howard feels strongly that HR and compensation professionals need to get engaged in the debate about rewards in our public schools. I appreciate him taking the time to share his experience and thoughts with us here at the Cafe. Take it away, Howard. And readers, please share your own thoughts and perspectives.
Let me start by saying the obvious - We all have a vested interest in the quality of education across the country. I suspect we have all seen how low the U.S. ranks in math and science education. I doubt anyone finds that acceptable. Many of us have also seen reports on how poorly our children are able to answer simple questions about history or geography.
The evidence is troubling. Many of us agree there is a problem. Teacher pay is a central issue but switching to pay for performance as an isolated change is not the solution. This is not a simple, “Should we or should we not have merit pay for teachers” question.
I encourage everyone to read the report on a McKinsey study: “Closing the talent gap: Attracting and retaining top third graduates to a career in teaching”. The executive summary opens with the statement, “The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” In the study, McKinsey looked at how those countries ranked the highest handle teaching training and staffing.
Perhaps the most striking point is that "the world’s top performing school systems . . . recruit, develop and retain what we [McKinsey] will call ‘top third’ students” from their academic cohort." It has been a few years since I was in college but majoring in education was not highly regarded then and apparently that’s still true. Only 23% of our new teachers, according to the report, come from the top third.
If the U.S. were to adopt a similar policy, pay would be a central issue. The cost would be high. The school year in the highly ranked countries is also longer. Extending the school year adds to the cost.
McKinsey also raises another very important issue. The Baby Boomers will be retiring in large numbers over the next decade. Our school systems will have to be ready to recruit high caliber replacements. The planning had better start soon.
McKinsey does not focus on the pay for performance issue. However, there has been a broad trend extending back to the “reinventing government” initiatives of the mid-90s for public agencies to move to merit pay. The current national concern with public sector performance has been exacerbated by the recession and the deficits at every level of government. The pressure to make government accountable and to switch away from tenure based pay systems is going to be a hot button. That has to carry over to public schools.
A decade ago I helped a local suburban Philadelphia school system develop a bonus system. It was based on what then was a new way of assessing teacher performance that is now referred to as “value-added modeling”. It’s a simple idea. Students are tested at the beginning of the year and at year end. The two scores should show a year’s progress. If the student progressed more than a year, it’s to the teacher’s credit; less than a year and the teacher is accountable. Although I would not go this far, the results make it possible to develop a list ranking teachers from best to worst.
Value added modeling’ does represent a credible basis for holding teachers accountable. A recent New York Times article claimed, “Use of value-added modeling is exploding nationwide. Hundreds of school systems, including those in Chicago, New York and Washington, are already using it to measure the performance of schools or teachers.” Valued added modeling can be used as the ‘what’ in ‘the what and the how’ to evaluate teachers.
A possible ‘how’ for teacher evaluations is the “Classroom Assessment Scoring System” (CLASS) developed at the University of Virginia. It’s an assessment tool that focuses on three “broad domains of effective student/teacher interactions -- emotional support, classroom organization and instructional support.” In other words, it looks at how a teacher performs his or her job. Their research shows that “students in classrooms with higher CLASS ratings realize greater gains in social skills and academic development.”
The point is not to advocate these methods but to note that there have been developments in the evaluation of teacher performance. Teachers can be evaluated with reliable methods that generate ratings suited to pay for performance.
That’s not enough, however. My experience with government agencies has convinced me the switch has to have a champion. There also has to be ‘ownership’. Teachers have to be deeply involved in the planning. Adequate training in coaching and observation of teachers is another issue. It’s not enough to tell principals how to complete the evaluation form. And finally the principals have to be paid for performance as well. They have to be accountable for creating a great school.
It’s up to us, as taxpayers and parents, to support efforts to improve public education.
Howard Risher is a private consultant who focuses on pay and performance. He has managed consulting practices in Manhattan, Philadelphia and Washington. Recently he has focused on health care, higher education and government. He is an avowed advocate of performance in government and has worked with all levels of government as well as the organizations of the UN’s Common System. He has developed five books, including Planning Wage and Salary Programs, which was published last year by WorldatWork. He is also the co-author of a regular column in the IPMA’s newsletter, “Managing People in Tough Times”. He has published over 40 articles in HR journals. Howard is a graduate of Penn State – Go Lions – and has an MBA and PhD from the Wharton school, University of Pennsylvania.
Image: Creative Commons Photo "graduation caps" by j.o.h.n Walker
Howard, thanks for sharing your thoughts on teacher merit pay.
One issue (among many) I am struggling with is confidentiality of teacher ratings. In the private sector great care is given to ensuring the confidentiality of an employee's rating except by those who need to know -- the chain of command and the HR department. This allows for a degree of honesty in providing feedback and suggestions for improvement.
But with teachers, some have argued that there should be no confidentiality of teacher ratings because of the public's right to know.
Seems to me that the confidentiality of teacher ratings is a fundamental issue that must be addressed before building merit pay for teachers.
Posted by: Paul Weatherhead | 10/23/2010 at 07:51 AM
One approach that has promise is to pay teachers a premium if they obtain and maintain the rigorous national board certification (see www.nbpts.org).
It is very hard to obtain this certification. It's not a rubber stamp. There are a variety of requirements -- letters of recommendation; graduate courses; professional development training; a 3 hour content test (6 essays); videos of teacher teaching; etc. Only about 20% of those who apply get certified.
The certification is not cheap. $2,500 for first certification; $1,500 for renewal in 10 years. States/school districts have found creative ways of sharing the cost with the teacher; and making it free for the teacher if he/she becomes certified.
Some states/school districts provide pay premiums for certification. North Carolina was paying an 11% premium; South Carolina was paying a $7,500 annual premium. But these premiums have been victim to budget cuts recently, so new teachers wanting certification may not get the certification fees covered nor the pay premium if passed.
This approach could be an excellent way of distinguishing the premier teachers by providing an objective assessment and rewarding them with tangible pay premiums.
Posted by: Paul Weatherhead | 10/23/2010 at 10:31 AM
That's an impressive certification process, far more rigorous than the one for certification of compensation professionals, who as a whole have less competence than the avearge teacher when they take their jobs and who at least have to do student teaching and take required courses in their field before they can practice. Compensation professionals on the other hand don't even know the basics before they are asked to do their jobs and many aren't even certified, a process that doesn't even require experience in their field. Perhaps, we should be concentrating on improving the qualifications of people in our own profession before we try to improve the quality of teachers, a field foreign to most compensation "experts".
Posted by: Howard | 10/25/2010 at 09:55 AM
Point of clarification on above post of 10/25/2010 at 7:55 AM. The post was made by Howard Smith, not Howard Risher.
Posted by: Howard | 10/25/2010 at 02:54 PM
Here is a link to a pilot teacher merit pay program in South Carolina: http://www.islandpacket.com/2010/10/01/1392531/successful-teachers-can-earn-bonuses.html
Some highlights of the program:
-- Higher pay provided if (a) students in class improve over expected levels of improvement, (b) students school-wide improve over exected levels of improvement, (c) teachers are evaluated by school leaders on skills and knowledge.
-- Student improvement is measured at beginning of school year and end-of-school year on standardized tests.
-- Funding of teacher bonuses provided under a federal grant.
The last issue -- funding -- appears to be critical. My guess is that in the long run the funding issue is going to vary all over the country with these kind of initiatives.
Posted by: Paul Weatherhead | 10/25/2010 at 03:38 PM