NYC Abandons Merit Pay

[chanel]

A New York City program that distributed $56 million in performance bonuses to teachers and other school staff members over the last three years will be permanently discontinued, the city Department of Education said on Sunday.

The decision was made in light of a study that found the bonuses had no positive effect on either student performance or teachers’ attitudes toward their jobs.

The study, commissioned by the city, is to be published Monday by the RAND Corporation, the public policy research institution. It compared the performance of the approximately 200 city schools that participated in the bonus program with that of a control group of schools.

Weighing surveys, interviews and statistics, the study found that the bonus program had no effect on students’ test scores, on grades on the city’s controversial A to F school report cards, or on the way teachers did their jobs.

“We did not find improvements in student achievement at any of the grade levels,” said Julie A. Marsh, the report’s lead researcher and a visiting professor at the University of Southern California

The results add to a growing body of evidence nationally that so-called pay-for-performance bonuses for teachers that consist only of financial incentives have no effect on student achievement, the researchers wrote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/education/18rand.html?_r=1

Surprise. Surprise. Children are not widgets?

 

[ogibillm]

i've always wondered how someone can 'teach harder'

 

[jillian]

'bout time they figured it out.

 

[chanel]

This really annoyed me. Christie doesn't get it. Children are not widgets.

"The concept of merit pay is foreign in public education, but is the standard in every other part of American life," explained Christie. "There is pay differentiation based upon the results that you produce, the level of excellence of your performance, the respect you have from your peers and the value that you bring to your organization. These to me seem to be bedrock American values."

It bears repeating that the Governor was asked the question and answered without first having the benefit of reading the studies.

Christie Still Supports Merit Pay For Teachers - New Jersey 101.5 FM

 

[Rev.Hellh0und]

i've always wondered how someone can 'teach harder'

You obviously have never attended a NYC public school.

 

[Rev.Hellh0und]

This really annoyed me. Christie doesn't get it. Children are not widgets.

"The concept of merit pay is foreign in public education, but is the standard in every other part of American life," explained Christie. "There is pay differentiation based upon the results that you produce, the level of excellence of your performance, the respect you have from your peers and the value that you bring to your organization. These to me seem to be bedrock American values."

It bears repeating that the Governor was asked the question and answered without first having the benefit of reading the studies.

Christie Still Supports Merit Pay For Teachers - New Jersey 101.5 FM

Jersey schools are outperforming NY schools....

 

[ogibillm]

i've always wondered how someone can 'teach harder'

You obviously have never attended a NYC public school.

i haven't. but there are so many factors outside of a teacher's control when it comes to student performance that it just seems to me that tieing pay to student performance is a crazy idea.

i get that there are lazy teachers out there - but i still believe that they are the exception, not the rule.

 

[martybegan]

This really annoyed me. Christie doesn't get it. Children are not widgets.

"The concept of merit pay is foreign in public education, but is the standard in every other part of American life," explained Christie. "There is pay differentiation based upon the results that you produce, the level of excellence of your performance, the respect you have from your peers and the value that you bring to your organization. These to me seem to be bedrock American values."

It bears repeating that the Governor was asked the question and answered without first having the benefit of reading the studies.

Christie Still Supports Merit Pay For Teachers - New Jersey 101.5 FM

There still has to be a way to measure performance for teachers, and there still should be a way to get rid of ones who don't do thier job. I get a yearly performance review in my job, and if I don't do what I get paid for I can get let go.

This is a problem endemic to public jobs in general, where it is far easier to find a "window job" for underperforming employees than get rid of them, forcing other people to do the bad employee's job, or force the government to hire more people.

If a teacher has no fear of losing thier job do to mediocrity, all you will get in 80% of the cases is mediocrity. There will be some who do thier job because of duty, but people, are people.

 

[Rev.Hellh0und]

i've always wondered how someone can 'teach harder'

You obviously have never attended a NYC public school.

i haven't. but there are so many factors outside of a teacher's control when it comes to student performance that it just seems to me that tieing pay to student performance is a crazy idea.

i get that there are lazy teachers out there - but i still believe that they are the exception, not the rule.

It depends on the system, and how hard it is to be fired.... It's a combination of things.


#1 is the parents, if they don't care, the kids don't care and I agree teachers cant make a kid that doesn't care care if his homelife instills this belief system here.

But this is easily remidied, by documenting and logging the problem kids when you go to your performance report.

Merit pay shouldn't be a death pact, however it should be part of an overall solution.

 

[xsited1]

NYC Abandons Merit Pay

The merit pay system seems logical if applied correctly. It certainly works well in private industry. But it should be based on more than just the student's overall scores improving.

 

[kwc57]

This really annoyed me. Christie doesn't get it. Children are not widgets.

"The concept of merit pay is foreign in public education, but is the standard in every other part of American life," explained Christie. "There is pay differentiation based upon the results that you produce, the level of excellence of your performance, the respect you have from your peers and the value that you bring to your organization. These to me seem to be bedrock American values."

It bears repeating that the Governor was asked the question and answered without first having the benefit of reading the studies.

Christie Still Supports Merit Pay For Teachers - New Jersey 101.5 FM

There still has to be a way to measure performance for teachers, and there still should be a way to get rid of ones who don't do thier job. I get a yearly performance review in my job, and if I don't do what I get paid for I can get let go.

This is a problem endemic to public jobs in general, where it is far easier to find a "window job" for underperforming employees than get rid of them, forcing other people to do the bad employee's job, or force the government to hire more people.

If a teacher has no fear of losing thier job do to mediocrity, all you will get in 80% of the cases is mediocrity. There will be some who do thier job because of duty, but people, are people.

Marty,

You and I usually agree and I do agree with what you said in general. There are bad teachers out there who need to be weeded out and let go. That being said, there are so many factors in education that it is hard to do a cookie cutter comparison of teachers. I live a pretty good life and live in a nice neighborhood. I'm in that group of people who are referred to today as helicopter parents. Now, I'm not one because as a Boy Scout leader, I've learned to let kids do for themselves, but I fall into that group. We care about what our kids are doing and what they are involved in and that carries over to education. When my son was in grade school, we required him to bring his work home every night so we could check it and went over his homework as well. We never gave him the answers, we just pointed out what was wrong and had him do the work. That paid off. He just graduated high school with honors, received a scholarship to a university where he has been accepted to their honors college. He is naturally bright, but we made his education a top priority in our home. Even with a "bad" teacher, our involvement in his education gave him an advantage.

The other side of that coin is the inner-city schools where the kids don't do so well. They get the same textbooks, the same materials and the same facilities. They may even have teachers who are teaching their ass off, but the kids make bad grades. The difference, the support they get at home. Perhaps there is no dad and mom works two jobs. For a variety of reasons, some valid and some not, the parents of these kids just don't make education a prioroty and don't involve themselves in their children's education.

If you are a teacher, how do you combat that. Bad teachers with parental support whose kids are making good grades are viewed as good teachers worthy of merit pay. Good teachers with no parental support whose kids are making bad grades are viewed as bad teachers who need to be fired.

I worked for a cmpany once who hired a consulting firm to do a study. There were areas of the company who could benefit from such a study because those people did guantitative work where you could measure speed and accuracy. I was in a professional position where I did project work and no two days were alike. They wanted to measure me and my peers by the same standards as the widget folks and there really was no valid way to do that. This is how I see trying to apply a standard to a teacher. Too many variables to make it viable.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The Problem is our "educational" system, it does not educate, it does not teach, students do not learn. It is an indoctrination center to make docile followers needing government subsidies and beholden to institutions.

The Department of Education and UFT are more dangerous and have done more damages to us than Al Qaeda ever could.

 

[kwc57]

The Problem is our "educational" system, it does not educate, it does not teach, students do not learn. It is an indoctrination center to make docile followers needing government subsidies and beholden to institutions.

The Department of Education and UFT are more dangerous and have done more damages to us than Al Qaeda ever could.

Not true Frank. I'm conservative and I know that is the talk radio mantra, but it varies from place to place. My son mentioned above got a great education in public school and came out an honor student with a very high ACT score. Were there idiots around him who seem like morons? You bet. How did the same school produce two different results? Parents made the largest difference. It might surprise you to know that during his senior year, they studied the writings of Ayn Rand in his government indoctrination center.

 

[martybegan]

This really annoyed me. Christie doesn't get it. Children are not widgets.



Christie Still Supports Merit Pay For Teachers - New Jersey 101.5 FM

There still has to be a way to measure performance for teachers, and there still should be a way to get rid of ones who don't do thier job. I get a yearly performance review in my job, and if I don't do what I get paid for I can get let go.

This is a problem endemic to public jobs in general, where it is far easier to find a "window job" for underperforming employees than get rid of them, forcing other people to do the bad employee's job, or force the government to hire more people.

If a teacher has no fear of losing thier job do to mediocrity, all you will get in 80% of the cases is mediocrity. There will be some who do thier job because of duty, but people, are people.

Marty,

You and I usually agree and I do agree with what you said in general. There are bad teachers out there who need to be weeded out and let go. That being said, there are so many factors in education that it is hard to do a cookie cutter comparison of teachers. I live a pretty good life and live in a nice neighborhood. I'm in that group of people who are referred to today as helicopter parents. Now, I'm not one because as a Boy Scout leader, I've learned to let kids do for themselves, but I fall into that group. We care about what our kids are doing and what they are involved in and that carries over to education. When my son was in grade school, we required him to bring his work home every night so we could check it and went over his homework as well. We never gave him the answers, we just pointed out what was wrong and had him do the work. That paid off. He just graduated high school with honors, received a scholarship to a university where he has been accepted to their honors college. He is naturally bright, but we made his education a top priority in our home. Even with a "bad" teacher, our involvement in his education gave him an advantage.

The other side of that coin is the inner-city schools where the kids don't do so well. They get the same textbooks, the same materials and the same facilities. They may even have teachers who are teaching their ass off, but the kids make bad grades. The difference, the support they get at home. Perhaps there is no dad and mom works two jobs. For a variety of reasons, some valid and some not, the parents of these kids just don't make education a prioroty and don't involve themselves in their children's education.

If you are a teacher, how do you combat that. Bad teachers with parental support whose kids are making good grades are viewed as good teachers worthy of merit pay. Good teachers with no parental support whose kids are making bad grades are viewed as bad teachers who need to be fired.

I worked for a cmpany once who hired a consulting firm to do a study. There were areas of the company who could benefit from such a study because those people did guantitative work where you could measure speed and accuracy. I was in a professional position where I did project work and no two days were alike. They wanted to measure me and my peers by the same standards as the widget folks and there really was no valid way to do that. This is how I see trying to apply a standard to a teacher. Too many variables to make it viable.

I agree it is a tough thing to measure, but something has to be done. You can't just give up and let people basically have jobs for life where their performance of at least some basic tasks isn't measured or rated.

The poster child of bad teachers never getting fired is NYC. While the famous "rubber rooms" are being reduced, I see a problem where it takes over a year to figure out if you can fire a teacher accused of hitting or fooling around with a student.

I have no issue with unionization of certain jobs. What I have an issue with is unions that have more power than the administrators of the organziation thier employees work in, to the point where it takes over a year to fire someone, not of non-performance, but of negligence or even criminal activites.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The Problem is our "educational" system, it does not educate, it does not teach, students do not learn. It is an indoctrination center to make docile followers needing government subsidies and beholden to institutions.

The Department of Education and UFT are more dangerous and have done more damages to us than Al Qaeda ever could.

Not true Frank. I'm conservative and I know that is the talk radio mantra, but it varies from place to place. My son mentioned above got a great education in public school and came out an honor student with a very high ACT score. Were there idiots around him who seem like morons? You bet. How did the same school produce two different results? Parents made the largest difference. It might surprise you to know that during his senior year, they studied the writings of Ayn Rand in his government indoctrination center.

Right, I'm talking about the System, Im not talking about microvariances within the system. I moved to Westchester to get my kids into the schools system and they got into NYC and UMD as a result. BFD.

The system is not just broken, its sabotaged. The only reason the school up here rock is we have an extremely vocal, active and involved parents who pay on averag $1000/month in property taxes to suport the school system.

The System needs to be fixed as it totally dismantled and start with a clean sheet of paper

 

[kwc57]

There still has to be a way to measure performance for teachers, and there still should be a way to get rid of ones who don't do thier job. I get a yearly performance review in my job, and if I don't do what I get paid for I can get let go.

This is a problem endemic to public jobs in general, where it is far easier to find a "window job" for underperforming employees than get rid of them, forcing other people to do the bad employee's job, or force the government to hire more people.

If a teacher has no fear of losing thier job do to mediocrity, all you will get in 80% of the cases is mediocrity. There will be some who do thier job because of duty, but people, are people.

Marty,

You and I usually agree and I do agree with what you said in general. There are bad teachers out there who need to be weeded out and let go. That being said, there are so many factors in education that it is hard to do a cookie cutter comparison of teachers. I live a pretty good life and live in a nice neighborhood. I'm in that group of people who are referred to today as helicopter parents. Now, I'm not one because as a Boy Scout leader, I've learned to let kids do for themselves, but I fall into that group. We care about what our kids are doing and what they are involved in and that carries over to education. When my son was in grade school, we required him to bring his work home every night so we could check it and went over his homework as well. We never gave him the answers, we just pointed out what was wrong and had him do the work. That paid off. He just graduated high school with honors, received a scholarship to a university where he has been accepted to their honors college. He is naturally bright, but we made his education a top priority in our home. Even with a "bad" teacher, our involvement in his education gave him an advantage.

The other side of that coin is the inner-city schools where the kids don't do so well. They get the same textbooks, the same materials and the same facilities. They may even have teachers who are teaching their ass off, but the kids make bad grades. The difference, the support they get at home. Perhaps there is no dad and mom works two jobs. For a variety of reasons, some valid and some not, the parents of these kids just don't make education a prioroty and don't involve themselves in their children's education.

If you are a teacher, how do you combat that. Bad teachers with parental support whose kids are making good grades are viewed as good teachers worthy of merit pay. Good teachers with no parental support whose kids are making bad grades are viewed as bad teachers who need to be fired.

I worked for a cmpany once who hired a consulting firm to do a study. There were areas of the company who could benefit from such a study because those people did guantitative work where you could measure speed and accuracy. I was in a professional position where I did project work and no two days were alike. They wanted to measure me and my peers by the same standards as the widget folks and there really was no valid way to do that. This is how I see trying to apply a standard to a teacher. Too many variables to make it viable.

I agree it is a tough thing to measure, but something has to be done. You can't just give up and let people basically have jobs for life where their performance of at least some basic tasks isn't measured or rated.

The poster child of bad teachers never getting fired is NYC. While the famous "rubber rooms" are being reduced, I see a problem where it takes over a year to figure out if you can fire a teacher accused of hitting or fooling around with a student.

I have no issue with unionization of certain jobs. What I have an issue with is unions that have more power than the administrators of the organziation thier employees work in, to the point where it takes over a year to fire someone, not of non-performance, but of negligence or even criminal activites.

Well, to me the answer is one of letting their local supervisor (principal) call the shots. Like my situation where I worked, my boss knew whether I was doing my job, producing good results and keeping the customer happy. We discussed it at each annual review. From the outside, we can look at an inner city school and ask just why the hell this teacher with 40 kids making C's and D's got a merit increase and think it doesn't make any sense. From the inside, the principal may know that the teacher is doing a great job fighting a constant uphill battle and is at least getting the kids to C's and D's and managing to engage them to the point of staying in school. That too is a result, just not the A's and B's and high standardized tests that we on the outside expect.

Schools and companies are not the only place where it is hard to fire an under-performer. My wife works for a LARGE bank and she had widget people who were killing their productivity. She had to spend months bulding and documenting a case to get rid of someone that she knew within 10 minutes needed to be drummed out. In this law suit happy world, it's just the way it is these days and unions can make it even worse.

 

[whitehall]

After wasting 56M they figure it out. That makes them too stupid to teach doesn't it?

 

[xsited1]

The Problem is our "educational" system, it does not educate, it does not teach, students do not learn. It is an indoctrination center to make docile followers needing government subsidies and beholden to institutions.

The Department of Education and UFT are more dangerous and have done more damages to us than Al Qaeda ever could.

Not true Frank. I'm conservative and I know that is the talk radio mantra, but it varies from place to place. My son mentioned above got a great education in public school and came out an honor student with a very high ACT score. Were there idiots around him who seem like morons? You bet. How did the same school produce two different results? Parents made the largest difference. It might surprise you to know that during his senior year, they studied the writings of Ayn Rand in his government indoctrination center.

Parents always make the biggest difference. At the private schools my kids attend, parent-teacher night is packed. Not one parent is ever absent. I guess if you're paying thousands of dollars to send your kid to private schools, you have an incentive to make sure they do well.

 

[Trajan]

NYC Abandons Merit Pay

The merit pay system seems logical if applied correctly. It certainly works well in private industry. But it should be based on more than just the student's overall scores improving.

well said-


further down in the article;

Schools qualified for bonuses if they exceeded statistical targets based on their performance on the school report cards. Each school that won created a committee of teachers and administrators to determine how to distribute the money.

The study found that most schools decided to distribute the bonuses equally to all staff members, amounting to about $3,000 per teacher. But even at schools where the committee rewarded some teachers more than others, no effect on student performance was discerned.

The researchers hypothesized that one reason for the failure of the program might have been that all city schools are already under heavy pressure to raise student test scores, or else face sanctions, including closing. In that environment, a small bonus — which could total $1,500 per teacher after taxes — might not have been significant.

Teachers also reported that improving as teachers and seeing their students learn were bigger motivators than a bonus, Dr. Marsh said.

Then, too, some staff members viewed the program as unfair because it relied too heavily on test scores, and others said they did not understand how the awards were determined.





the Times doesn't seem mention the other very obvious issue at play here as well, that the Unions deep down are hostile to this and I am sure that had a part to play as well.

 

[flacaltenn]

A New York City program that distributed $56 million in performance bonuses to teachers and other school staff members over the last three years will be permanently discontinued, the city Department of Education said on Sunday.

The decision was made in light of a study that found the bonuses had no positive effect on either student performance or teachers’ attitudes toward their jobs.

The study, commissioned by the city, is to be published Monday by the RAND Corporation, the public policy research institution. It compared the performance of the approximately 200 city schools that participated in the bonus program with that of a control group of schools.

Weighing surveys, interviews and statistics, the study found that the bonus program had no effect on students’ test scores, on grades on the city’s controversial A to F school report cards, or on the way teachers did their jobs.

“We did not find improvements in student achievement at any of the grade levels,” said Julie A. Marsh, the report’s lead researcher and a visiting professor at the University of Southern California

The results add to a growing body of evidence nationally that so-called pay-for-performance bonuses for teachers that consist only of financial incentives have no effect on student achievement, the researchers wrote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/education/18rand.html?_r=1

Surprise. Surprise. Children are not widgets?

Who's the moron who ASSUMED that merit pay results in better performance? That's not the issue at all.. Merit pay is BECAUSE these teachers are already performing.

“We did not find improvements in student achievement at any of the grade levels,” said Julie A. Marsh, the report’s lead researcher and a visiting professor at the University of Southern California

Well DUH!!!!!

Those SuperBowl bonuses are not given to the winners because they're gonna be better next year!!! What a farce..

Meanwhile -- all over NYC --- dozens of suspended faulty teachers sit around in their "rubber room" assignments because THEY can't be fired.. So no merit pay for the good ones. THey just get to "share" what they could have made -- with the ones who should be frogmarched out of the district..