Feeds: 
symbol identifies content for paid subscribers only.
Admin Continues Merit Pay Push. What Does Research Say?
One of the major developments in education policy this year has been the Obama administration's continued, focused attention on the issue of merit pay, despite a lack of strong evidence linking such programs to increased student achievement. On Sunday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appeared on "Face the Nation" and reiterated this agenda.
So it's worthwhile to take a look at what social science has to tell us about merit pay. Consider this TED talk on career motivation from Dan Pink, a former Al Gore speechwriter who is now a business journalist. If you can get past the MBA lingo, there's a lot here that is really consequential for education policy. Forty years of psychological research demonstrates that when someone is faced with a complex, creative task -- like teaching -- money is an ineffective motivational tool, and may even delay progress. Professionals engaged in creative work are more likely to be motivated by autonomy, and by the feeling that they are part of a larger, socially important enterprise.
As Pink mentions, though, one key to professional motivation is making sure everyone is paid fairly at the outset, thus getting the issue of compensation "off the table." That suggests paying teachers more earlier on in their careers, instead of back-loading the reward system, as many current teacher contracts do.
This jibes with the latest findings from one of my favorite education researchers, Cornell University labor economist C. Kirabo Jackson. After looking at North Carolina schoolchildren for 11 years, Jackson found that students' test scores improved when a high quality teacher taught in their grade-level -- even if they were not themselves in that teacher's class. Why? The positive impact comes not because teachers are competing with another for merit pay rewards, but because they are working alongside more competent colleagues, who are improving their skills.
“If it’s true that teachers are learning from their peers, and the effects are not small, then we want to make sure that any incentive system we put in place is going to be fostering that and not preventing it,” Jackson told Education Week. “If you give the reward at the individual level, all of a sudden my peers are no longer my colleagues—they’re my competitors. If you give it at the school level, then you’re going to foster feelings of team membership, and that increases the incentive to work together and help each other out.”
--Dana Goldstein
COMMENTS (8)
Texas made a stab at merit pay for teachers several years ago with its "career ladder" system. It was a disaster in that it created the exact distructive tensions between individual teachers that you described. At the beginning of my teaching career there were "career ladder" teachers who explicitly refused to help me become a better teacher because then I would be in competition for "their" money.
Posted by: CJ White | September 8, 2009 3:13 PM
http://www.quickanded.com/2009/09/the-meaning-of-merit-pay.html
Posted by: Michael Bishop | September 8, 2009 7:53 PM
There's a huge shortage of math teachers in our school systems nation wide. Wouldn't a higher pay for good math teachers help eliminate the shortage?
The higher the demand for any particular skill in our economy, the higher the pay. Why can't the same principle apply to teachers?
Posted by: Oakely | September 8, 2009 10:30 PM
Ms. Goldstein's argument is fairly weak here.
Reason 1 why this is weak: Teacher motivation and teacher recruitment/retention are two different things. Outsourced to Matt Yglesias:
I don’t think the idea is that ineffective teachers are going to suddenly will themselves into becoming great teachers in order to grab some incentive pay. The point is that if you’re employing a bunch of teachers, any of whom might depart in favor of employment elsewhere, you want to make sure that it’s your most effective teachers who are least likely to quit. And one way to do that is to make sure that it’s your most effective teachers—rather than simply your longest-serving ones—who are getting paid the most money.
Reason 2 why Goldstein's argument is weak: Merit pay isn't all about money. The money, as in so many jobs, is a proxy for respect and recognition for the hard work that teachers put into their jobs. As things stand, a teacher who pours his heart and soul into his lessons can expect no greater reward - now or ever! - than a teacher who half-asses the job. The message to to the hard-working teacher couldn't be clearer: "Your effort will not be recognized or rewarded." With a merit-based pay system, raises are more than cash in a teacher's wallet - they're a message that the system appreciates and rewards dedication, ingenuity, and effort.
Reason 3 why Goldstein's argument is weak: There's no good alternative. The system we now use - seniority-based pay - is so motivation-killing that Goldstein herself calls for it to be changed:
[O]ne key to professional motivation is making sure everyone is paid fairly at the outset, thus getting the issue of compensation "off the table." That suggests paying teachers more earlier on in their careers, instead of back-loading the reward system, as many current teacher contracts do.
Huh? So Goldstein is suggesting that, instead of getting raises based on seniority, teachers have flat salaries for their entire careers? That would be highly unlikely to work wonders for teacher motivation. And the fact that Goldstein is casting around for anything-but-merit-pay alternatives to the current system indicates that her dislike of merit pay is based more on principle than on a rational evaluation of the alternatives.
Posted by: Noah | September 8, 2009 10:33 PM
"Forty years of psychological research demonstrates that when someone is faced with a complex, creative task -- like teaching -- money is an ineffective motivational tool, and may even delay progress."
Setting aside the validity of this statement, I can firmly say from 20+ years of college-level teaching that an inadequate salary and the associated stress has a marked impact on one's ability to perform one's academic duties. I've got younger colleagues, married and with babies and toddlers, who try to grade papers and write up research in cramped two-bedroom apartments because their salaries don't provide enough income to buy a house. Last year one of our tenure-track professor's car broke down and she couldn't afford the repairs for a couple of months, so my wife and I ferried her around.
Posted by: Danton | September 9, 2009 10:51 AM
"Forty years of psychological research demonstrates that when someone is faced with a complex, creative task -- like teaching -- money is an ineffective motivational tool, and may even delay progress."
Setting aside the validity of this statement, I can firmly say from 20+ years of college-level teaching that an inadequate salary and the associated stress has a marked impact on one's ability to perform one's academic duties. I've got younger colleagues, married and with babies and toddlers, who try to grade papers and write up research in cramped two-bedroom apartments because their salaries don't provide enough income to buy a house. Last year one of our tenure-track professor's car broke down and she couldn't afford the repairs for a couple of months, so my wife and I ferried her around.
Posted by: Danton | September 9, 2009 10:52 AM
Funny but your logic doesnt apply in the real world.Thats why many of our kids are being taught math and science by people without a degree in the subject.Who in their right mind with a masters degree be a teacher with that pay scale.Especially now with the cost of education and the burden of loans after graduation.This is one arena where if you were so inclined you could prove you are getting what you pay for.It seems you are not so inclined.
Posted by: Jean Power | September 9, 2009 2:37 PM
It's sad, but teachers salaries are a joke, in regards to both the starting wages and the potential earnings. What does it tell you that not one of my friends in college pursued a career in teaching? Many expressed a desire for it, or claimed to be good with children, but it was never considered a career out of college. It was just something that might happen if all other options fell through.
It's about time we made teaching a real career option, so hopefully we can recruit some of the top young minds.
As a side note...In his book, The 2% Solution, Matthew Miller brought up a great point regarding the quality of teachers and the rise of the feminist movement. Up until then, women basically had 3 professional options: secretary, nurse, or teacher. This translated to a huge pool of well-qualified teachers who, today, would probably be competing in the corporate world. Our world has changed, but our education system hasn't, and its suffering for it.
Posted by: Ben Childs | September 9, 2009 8:40 PM