Last night, I had a short Twitter exchange with Jason Glass, the new Iowa Department of Education Director. He posted a link to an article about an Innovation Acceleration Fund created in Tennessee to give incentives to school districts willing to experiment with alternative teacher salary plans. Here is the link to that article: http://trunc.it/ecd5r
I think it is common knowledge that one of the reasons Governor Branstad appointed Mr. Glass to the DE position is because of his past work in promoting and creating alternate teacher salary plans. What do you think? What are the pros and cons of paying teachers with current salary schedules? What "landmines" do you think exist in trying to change the way teachers are paid? What advice do you have for Mr. Glass? And most importantly, do you think changing the way teachers are paid will result in better student learning/achievement?
Replying anonymously (respectfully) is always an option.
In keeping with the "alternative salary plans" approach I saw this on Twitter while following the NAESP tweets. Check out the link: South Carolina superintendent seeks to move teacher & principal salaries into a mandatory pay-for-performance system http://bit.ly/fOES8Q
ReplyDeleteI am OK with this idea and do in fact feel it would benefit student learning. It will HIGHLY encourage teachers to stay on their "A" game and not slide out the final years before retirement.
ReplyDeleteI agree with rewarding good teachers for their performance. However, I do not agree with rewarding teachers based on their students' test scores. As it was once put to me....I don't get to choose the blueberries to put in my basket!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Steve but I'm fearful of having my salary in the hands of 11 year olds...they need to avoid using ITBS or MAP testing for assessing teacher performance. Mr. Glass has said this will be part of the plan but not all.
ReplyDeleteAs of now, there is nothing that can prove or disprove causality when looking at test scores. In other words, there is no way to prove that when a student does well or poorly on a test that it is because of what a teacher did. Without that, it makes no sense to link teacher pay to test scores, and those who say otherwise either do not understand statistics or have an agenda.
ReplyDeleteWhat about those who do not have test scores attached to our jobs? Where do they fit?
ReplyDeleteWon't attaching pay to student achievement have the potential to move education backward...inclusion becomes awfully difficult when no one wants specific students to bring down the class scores.
One final thought...when you have a difficult class and are trying your hardest to improve achievement - this would give you a triple whammy...the stress of discipline, poor achievement and a smaller pay check...
There is only so much an individual can do...
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ReplyDeleteThis is such a complicated issue. I agree that we can't just rely on test scores to judge student performance. Especially if the test is like ITBS, and is not tied to the district's curriculum or to Iowa Core. I have heard that the assessment piece of Iowa Core is in the works. However, I think that test scores alone to do not give a full picture of teacher effectiveness. I think that DC schools also used student survey data, and had a rubric for teacher evaluation that they purchased and used. Teachers would need to be evaluated multiple time per year.
ReplyDeleteLeslie, I know that I have read about studies in which having a bad teacher puts students something like two years behind other students, and having a good teacher can move kids ahead by an additional year or more. I'm not sure how that growth was measured though. Michelle Rhea's website also has a study that claims to find a correlation between student test scores and other forms of teacher evaluation, like student surveys.
That said, I think that you have to consider that an elementary teacher instructs about 30 kids (or less) per year. An secondary teacher teaches about 100 kids per year. A principal is responsible for even more and a superintendent still more. An elementary teacher's average test scores will be much more effected by a few hard-to-teach students than a secondary teacher's and so on. How has the issue of sample size been addressed in other districts?
Also, if we are going to judge teachers this way, I think that administrators should also have their pay linked to effectiveness. Their evaluation should be tied to measures other than test scores too, and should include evaluations by the teachers in their buildings.
ReplyDeleteHere is a quote from the article that Jim linked to...interesting.
ReplyDelete"The best teachers should make more than their principals, he said.
Statewide, the average salary is $47,500 for teachers, $68,370 for assistant principals and $82,650 for principals, according to the agency, though salaries vary widely based on a district's tax base.
"Teachers are to education what doctors are to medicine ... but if you go into a hospital, we pay doctors a lot more than we pay medical administrators," Zais said."
Interesting discussion so far. I am not completely opposed to test scores as part of an evaluation tool linked to some of my pay. What about keeping the "base pay" and adding "incentive pay" or a "bonus" so that teachers, already underpaid, don't get a triple whammy as described above. I don't think anyone's pay in a profession that requires a college degree and ongoing development should vary widely from year to year, based on lots of outside factors; district location and size, students that year, outside factors like a new principal, lots of snow days,...
ReplyDeleteReading the Des Moines Register this weekend, schools are already starting to recruit more heavily to get more students and funding. Will this happen so teachers can stack their classes, too?
I do agree that something else probably needs to be done on this topic. I think we have all worked a few teachers that do not put much time, effort, or care into their job and are still getting the same pay as those who go above and beyond what is required. However, I don't think that it should be based on what students get on test scores. There are many factors that go into a student's acheivement. We cannot change the support that is or is not given at home and effort put in by students. We can do everything in our power to help them while they are in our classrooms. Is a dentist's pay based on whether or not their patients don't get cavities?
ReplyDeleteIf we link teacher pay to test scores; won't that simply cause teachers to teach the test? I am not totally against the bonus idea that dflbaker suggested and also agree with Ms. Aldrich-Rietz's comment about the blueberries.
ReplyDelete