We are living in extraordinary times. Unemployment nationally is approaching 10 percent, more troops are being requested in the war in Afghanistan, the Lion of the Senate died, and was referred to by his Republican colleagues as the best legislator in history, and the SF Giants are near a playoff berth.
Another testament to this astonishing era is the special session of the California legislature recently called by Gov. Schwarzenegger to reshape education as we have known it.
The catalyst for this reform has been the 10 percent share California can receive of the $4.35 billion in federal grants available under “Race to the Top” funds. During this special session a “war” of two belief systems will break out sooner than later.
Arnie Duncan, the United States Secretary of Education, in July excluded California from qualifying for any of these funds due to what some have called a state “firewall” law that prohibits certain test data to be used as criteria to pay, promote or evaluate teachers. The new proposed legislation requires this criteria. The intent is to allow evaluation of teachers by student growth year to year. Students would be measured against themselves to determine the effect a teacher had on their achievement.
Teachers will argue rightly that students are different from class to class, school to school, and district to district. Some schools have significantly more English Language Learners than others. Some classrooms have more students of special needs than others. They might say that higher socioeconomic areas have higher performing students who do better on standardized tests. Jim Lanich, director of the California State University’s Center to Close the Achievement Gap, asserts that a variety of factors should be used in teacher evaluations rather than just test scores. I agree with Jim.
The very powerful lobby of the California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers, with more than 440,000 members combined, is strongly opposed to using student test data in teacher evaluations. Therefore, there will be a very heated debate during this special session to end by October 5.
The potential exists for a raucous heavyweight fight. The whole nation will be watching California for the results. To the winner may go the $400 million prize.
The convergence of a Democratic president supported by both unions in the general election, and the tenets espoused by Secretary Duncan about eligibility for Race to Top funds, are in direct opposition. As recently as 2006, teachers unions lobbied successfully in getting the California legislature to ban the use of performance data in teacher evaluations. Three years later all bets are off. The unions believe the Governor is caving to federal demands.
During the last 35 years I have had the privilege to serve the educational community in Silicon Valley as a teacher, principal, local California Teachers Association and Association of California School Administrators president, school board member, and adjunct professor of education classes at our local universities. I believe I understand this issue from a 360-degree perspective.
For at least 20 of those 35 years I have been a strong advocate of merit pay for teachers. I have never been a proponent of strictly using test scores to determine teacher value in a merit pay system.
Teachers must be at the table to help determine the language and metrics used in teacher evaluations. Even though the language might change at the state level it will be up to local districts to negotiate with their teacher union to determine the specifics of the evaluation plan. Only districts with bold leadership at the superintendent and teacher union level will incorporate pay for performance models. The rest will be too timid to try.
The vast preponderance of teachers do a very good job in their life’s work and get excellent results in an under-funded system. The teaching profession is difficult, however it has tremendous intrinsic rewards very few professions have. But the best teachers, however that is determined, deserve a significantly higher salary.
Reshape education by eliminating tuition free higher education. Okay. Well, as the doors are closing at San Jose State, we have a student government there permanently out to lunch, and Larry Carr celebrating, less students, less chance for blood donations. It’s Miller Time for Carr and the stamp collector and tea lady, Verril Phillips, the disaster running student affairs. Verril has a good plan, keep students out, no need to work.
Clearly multiple criteria need to be used in measuring teacher performance, but test data can be one of them. It would be folly to try to rank teachers against one another that work in disparate school districts like East LA vs Palo Alto. But data can show how teachers at the same school compare to one another. If we use rolling averages and use data to measure trends and improvement, and not absolute performance, it can be a valuable tool in improving education in general and student achievement more specifically.
For decades the education system has gotten worse and the costs have skyrocketed. It seems that every year a new “program” is implemented, and most fail.
The only way to truly reshape the education system is to allow for decisions at the smallest level possible. We already have legislators in Sacramento thinking they know what’s best for every student from San Diego to Crescent City. No single individual or group has that ability. Different areas have different demographics, constituents, cultures and needs. Adding diktats from as far away as Washington DC will only exacerbate the problem.
There will always be an infinite amount of ideas of how to best approach education. Until the government monopoly is eliminated, the best ideas will never be found, the worst ideas will never be eliminated, and the small niche market/needs will never be served.
The people who stand in the way of freeing the education market, who want centralized decisions for all students and teachers, who want to control the money flow, the salaries, the spending priorities, are the people responsible for the state of our current education system.
“The vast preponderance of teachers do a very good job in their life’s work and get excellent results”
Really? If most of the teachers get excellent results, why do our universities keep adding remedial math and English classes?
If the schools were actually producing excellent results, there would be no need to remedy the basic skills of the top 10% of students.
However, no matter what some teachers do, there are multiple other factors that go into a child’s learning. To say the teacher didn’t do their job is ridiculous! After a high school education’s ‘lifetime’ of education, many still don’t get it. They still deserve a chance to further their education!
I really liked this article. I think Mr. DiSalvo had to speak on. I think parents, communities, and out state point their fingers towards the teacher. When it comes to deciding a teachers pay based off of test scores i feel thats unfair. Yes, teachers have a lot of responsibilty with in a classroom. However, teachers can only do so much when it comes to a child and their testing skills. Many children are not confident in their test performances. Therefore, i do not think it is acceptable to point the finger at a teacher (or base their pay)for the poor test taking abilities that the data may show!
I agree that teacher’s should not be evaluated solely by test scores. Teacher’s are faced with unique challenges every year that they must flex to, such as the differences in children and the variety of classroom situations. A child’s test score is one-dimensional and could never truly reflect the teacher’s multi-faceted impact on that child. I also agree that the better teachers out there deserve much more than they are receiving!
Merit pay is not something to run away from or eliminate right off the bat. As DiSalvo says it is something to be discussed and we should have teachers at the forefront of the conversation. $400 million would impact our education system, especially in this time of need. But, basing merit pay merely on test scores will be a step in the wrong direction. Higher socioeconomic areas typically have higher test scores. If a teacher is hired in a higher socioeconomic school he or she may reap the rewards of “merit” pay when in fact he or she is just as qualified as the teacher down the street in the school with the lower socioeconomic demographic.
This article makes some truly excellent points. I think that merit based pay is a good idea in many regards. If properly implemented, it could hold teachers to high standards and make them accountable for the kind of learning that takes place in their classrooms. That being said, I am adamantly opposed to allowing standardized test scores to in any way affect a teacher’s salary. It seems nonsensical to use a norm-referenced, biased, and unreliable medium to influence teacher compensation. These tests have more than enough power as it is—no need to make the stakes even higher.
All poppycock. No teacher in the state of California is paid a decent salary. If you want to reform education do four things, double the pay for all teachers before you even think of merit pay, fund classrooms so teachers aren’t paying out of pocket to fund their classrooms, require a two to three year teacher apprenticeship with a mentor teacher working closely with a new teacher using a paradigm such as the National Boards Certification Program and REDUCE CLASS SIZE to 15 to 1 in every classroom K- 12.
There, solved the education crisis.
I think this article makes a strong arguement on behalf of teachers. People at the state level are always looking for someone to blame for the problem and to try and evaluate teachers in an unfair manner will ultimiately turn people away from the profession altogether- good and great ones. So many factors need to be considered in an evaluation to be accurate. The bottom line is exactly what DiSalvo said, “teachers do a very good job in their life’s work and get excellent results in an under-funded system.”
I agree that good teachers should be paid more, but then all teachers should be paid more so that it will attract more qualified people to the profession. With that being said, there should be different criteria to determine excellence, not just test scores.
Merit based pay for teachers based on test results is an excellent idea, that is, if we lived in a world where everyone lived within the same socioeconomic area, same class, with the same amount of English Language Learners and special needs students in every classroom and had the same student teacher ratio in every single classroom. Unfortunately, we don’t live in this so-called cookie cutter world, especially in our diverse state of California. The results of these tests should be used to figure out what our students need in order to succeed if they are not already doing so. Teachers are a piece of the puzzle but not the entire puzzle when it comes to the success of a student. There are many factors that need to be considered in an evaluation to be fair and accurate, especially when it involves one of the toughest professions in our country.
I would like to say that what Cate Schroeder wrote is completely true and I agree with her 100% I do not understand why schooling is under funded. Education is so important for advancing society that one would think government would be pouring money into education instead of other endeavors. I will not say which ones, but I am sure that we all have our own ideas of what has been over funded. I believe in merit-based pay, but I think that test scores are only one aspect that should be looked at. From personal experience, I believe that standardized tests test how a student takes a test, and not how much information a student knows. I was a horrible test taker when I was growing up, yet I was a hard worker and was top of my class in middles school. When it came to the SAT I scored very low yet I graduated with a 3.5 from UCSD. The SAT did not have any barring on how I performed at University. Instead of spending money on the testing of all the students in the United States, the government should take that money and place it in programs that would actually help students. Using testing score will only discourage teachers from teaching in lower socio-economic schools where great teachers are desperately needed because those schools tend to score lower on standardized tests. The schools that need the most funding already receive the least help. Also I would say that students in higher socio-economic schooling areas have parents that can afford to higher tutors h=for their children or send them to learning centers if they are having problems, so test scores for these students would show the effort of outside schooling not the ability of the teacher to teach. I can find so many more issues with only using the test scores. I am nervous for when I am a first time teacher.
To begin with, I’d like to say that I agree with your point Joseph.
The merits of individual educators is next to impossible to measure. Its like grading musicians. Some think Neil Young has a terrible voice while others thinks his style is sublime. Basing teachers pay on test scores is like basing a musicians talent on the amount of tickets he sells. Incentivizing whole schools makes more sense as it creates a cooperative effort amongst the educators to work towards a common goal. Bonuses based on a combination of comparative rankings versus equivalent schools and parental/student satisfaction, would offer a fairer view of how a school is performing. We don’t want teachers competing with one another. We want them to work together to offer a great school environment.
I assume that the goal of merit pay is not a reward system, but rather to improve students’ education. I think there are better ways to make this investment. I don’t think that merit pay serves the goal, especially if it is determined by standardized testing. This criteria would likely result in some unintended outcomes; most worrisome of which may be the practice of teaching to a test. We need to keep the big picture in mind: What will improve students’ education? I am not convinced that merit pay would help at all.
I agree that teacher performance should be evaluated using multiple criteria and not just student test scores. There are too many variables that come into play to simply use test scores as the sole measure of a teacher’s effectiveness.
Should better teachers get paid more? That seems fair but how will better be defined and who will form the definition? Will better be an issue of quality or results?
I don’t have years of experience or multiple viewpoints to feel confident in an answer or even an opinion. I do think, however, that all involved parties should be able to weigh in on the matter: teachers, students, parents, administrators, other official bodies, and the community at large.
I like what Cate Schroeder wrote. I don’t think it’s going to happen any time soon, but I appreciate her gutsy response.
As several people have pointed out already, basing teacher’s salaries on their students’ performance seems unfair to the teacher. So much else is going on in student’s lives these days, and test-taking just does not make it to the top of their priority list.
Many children in low-achieving districts have out-of-control problems at home, or have to meet obligations to maintain their family. Some examples that come to mind are drug/alcohol problems and older children having to care for younger siblings or relatives.
Elsewhere Mr. DiSalvo has mentioned that there are teachers who perform exceptionally well even in the most difficult circumstances. What are those teacher’s methods of success? How does that person connect with their students? What is working? It seems like there has to be a better way than penalizing teachers who are already on the low end of the professional salary world, unless it is for grossly lacking effectiveness. And for that there are already mechanisms in place, to the best of my knowledge.
What I like so much about Cate Schroeder’s comments is that she more directly addresses the failings of our teacher education system in general. Many other professions have much more thorough apprenticeship programs where the trainee gets paid as they learn, and there is much more support than what teachers get to be successful.
My other fear is that merit pay based on students tests scores may make it so some teachers “teach to the test” even more. I am not against some form of merit based pay, but so many other factors need to be taken into account. This, to me, will just make the current educational problems even worse. Now we will just a have a world full of good test takers….
The idea of performance pay for teachers based on standardized test scores is an extremely interesting topic from my perspective. Although I lack a few years in the education field when compared with Professor DiSalvo, I feel that I have experienced some of the flaws and foibles of our system in the United States. My first-hand knowledge stems from multiple years in public education settings which placed me in contact with various students, educators, and classroom settings.
The idea of evaluating public school teachers based on performance in order to compensate them for successful teaching is a concept that I can fully support. Although I am currently employing my time in a teacher credentialing program to hopefully become part of the teaching workforce, I recognize that while some teachers demonstrate superior skill in their chosen field, others flounder and do the education field and their pupils a disservice. I think that we, as students and teachers, have all come in contact with these individuals from both ends of the spectrum. Success should be rewarded in society and in the education field. Good teachers should be evaluated and then compensated for their diligent labor on behalf of their students.
Do I feel that good teaching always denotes high test scores? The answer is no. Good teaching can lead to positive standardized test scores, but it can also inspire academic achievement in other areas that are not so easily evaluated such as increased desire to learn, written analytical ability, and interpersonal communication skills. In my opinion, compensating education professionals for an increase in test scores will most likely reduce the quality of public education for students and teachers. I feel that this is so because students and teachers would probably be required to adhere to an even stricter unit and lesson plan schedule with little space for exploring students’ interests or strengths. Educators could easily become overly focused on the standardized tests which, according to the proposal, would grant them a salary increase. I can also predict this proposal influencing teacher-student relationships when low scores begin to appear.
I hope that the individuals who lent their energies on behalf of the current administration will be cognizant of the salient tenets present in this piece of legislation and will voice their displeasure with the proposal to evaluate educators on standardized test scores. I have witnessed many partisan arguments recently in which individuals ignore events and occurrences solely because of the political party in power. That which is truly good for education should not change with the political tides.
I think DiSalvo makes two important points in this article. First, students should be compared to themselves. Students in different districts and different schools have different challenges and advantages that may affect their test scores. What is important is whether kids are moving up a grade level in skill for every grade level they complete, and whether kids testing “below basic” one year are being moved up to “basic” the next year. Standardized tests are flawed, to be sure, but the standards are standard for a reason and the state suffers when graduates from its educational system do not know what they are expected to know. Until a better means is found to ensure that the students in California are learning what we think they are learning, standardized tests are the best we’ve got and we need to use them.
Second: the definition of what makes a “good teacher” and what merits better pay must be decided on the district level. In some districts, this may be purely based on increasing the number of students passing the standardized tests. In other districts, student feedback, parent feedback, and administrative evaluations may take precedence over test scores. Each community knows its own problems, and is in a better position to say what kinds of teachers and what kind of results they need or expect.
I think that if this merit-based system is developed thoughtfully, it could be a good thing for California. However, I agree with some of the other commenters that until the state provides schools with the tools (eg: money) they desperately need to enrich their schools, changing how we evaluate and pay our teachers will change very little.