Now a study of a "transcendent" NYC merit pay scheme finds it too was a failure.
In fact, schools that took part in the merit pay experiment actually declined in performance.
Elizabeth Green at Gotham Schools reports:
New York City’s heralded $75 million experiment in teacher incentive pay — deemed “transcendent” when it was announced in 2007 — did not increase student achievement at all, a new study by the Harvard economist Roland Fryer concludes.
“If anything,” Fryer writes of schools that participated in the program, “student achievement declined.” Fryer and his team used state math and English test scores as the main indicator of academic achievement.
The program, which was first funded by private foundations and then by taxpayer dollars, also had no impact on teacher behaviors that researchers measured. These included whether teachers stayed at their schools or in the city school district and how teachers described their job satisfaction and school quality in a survey.
The program had only a “negligible” effect on a list of other measures that includes student attendance, behavioral problems, Regents exam scores, and high school graduation rates, the study found.
The experiment targeted 200 high-need schools and 20,000 teachers between the 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 school years. The Bloomberg administration quietly discontinued it last year, turning back on the mayor’s early vow to expand the program quickly.
...
The deal was seen as a landmark in 2007 when Mayor Bloomberg announced it with then-United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten by his side. “I am a capitalist, and I am in favor of incentives for individual people,” Bloomberg said then, while Weingarten emphasized that schools could decide to distribute bonuses evenly among educators. She called the program “transcendent.”
...
Researchers were also surprised to find that middle school students actually seemed to be worse off. After three years attending schools involved in the project, middle school students’ math and English test scores declined by a statistically significant amount compared to students attending similar schools that were not part of the project.
The study adds to a research literature on teacher incentive pay that is decidedly more lukewarm than much of the popular conversation about teacher pay. Fryer, himself a strong early advocate of experimenting with financial incentives to improve student achievement, calls the literature “ambivalent.” While programs in developing countries such as India and Kenya have had positive effects, few teacher incentive pay efforts in the United States have been deemed effective.
Hey - merit pay schemes don't work in education.
They just don't.
But they fit the prevailing ideology of so many of the "Best and Brightest" we have running both parties and all the education think tanks.
Market-based reforms are the kind of policies that excite these folks.
After all, they are capitalists, as Mayor Moneybags so smugly noted back in 2007.
So what if the shit they push is harmful.
It's capitalism!
Yippeeeee!!!!!
Money!!!!!
Bonuses!!!!
Yayyy!!!!!
Not surprising at all. A few years ago I heard a rumor that my school had been awarded one of those schoolwide "merit pay incentives" that was supposed to be divvied up among the staff at the principal's discretion. Rumor, I say, because I never heard another peep about it. Granted, the principal had his pets. Chances are, they all split it and went out for a champagne dinner. The rest of us? Never saw a penny.
ReplyDeleteMerit pay can't be applied to special ed teachers, art teachers, music teachers, or speech teachers. Probably others as well, including, now, middle social studies teachers because there's no longer a state SS exam.
What a bunch of hooey. Don't they get it yet? Public school education doesn't respond to the almighty market. Wish they would get it thru their thick skulls.
I think they refuse to get it through their thick skulls.
ReplyDeleteIt's a conscious effort to ignore reality and live by ideology.
You are correct, RBE. It's not a tough concept. Merit pay is bullshit. But the ed deformers THRIVE on bullshit.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you would find that given one choice, would most teachers opt for the money in their salary or spend it on their classroom?
ReplyDelete@7:37. I'd keep it. One thing I always resented about working for the DOE was the amount of "stuff" I could not get at school. I'm not talking about fancy equipment or brand new books - I'm talking about copy paper, chalk, dry erase markers, erasers, a working computer, a working phone, access to a high-speed copier, shall I go on? I tried to spend as little of my own personal funds as possible on school.
ReplyDeleteIt's ridiculous that schools are not even provided with basic necessities.
Anon 9:00: I just spent $119 on geometry software because there just is no appropriate textbook for my ISS kids who need varied multiple ways of presenting concepts. They gave us a big $110 for Teachers' Choice, which was spent months ago. Then there are the trips to Staples for copies to ensure that the test will be ready when I need it to give to my students. Maybe next year we will need to buy toilet paper.
ReplyDeleteMs. Tsouris: I empathize. I didn't mean to imply that teachers everywhere aren't doing what you're doing. I taught only small groups so I didn't need as many materials - I often spent my own money on material I intended to keep and spent my teacher's choice money on disposables. I, like you, shouldn't have to be finagling with the finances like that.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, you and I are just a couple of those overpaid, lazy, employed-for-life, lousy teachers, right?
I think my point was that if I received extra money in my paycheck, I'd do whatever I could to keep it there. Public schools are not a business and there's no earthly reason why the money I make should go back into the classroom - it's not my own personal financial investment. You shouldn't have to do that, either.