-
Feb
2
2012
I don’t know what legislative sausage will end up in Governor Dennis Daugaard’s education reform package, but can we please take merit pay off the table?
Well-known education reform expert Diane Ravitch offers this powerful summary of why merit pay fails:
It is curious that teachers vigorously oppose merit pay, even though they are the ones who are supposed to reap the rewards. What do they know? They know that merit pay undermines collaboration and teamwork. They know that it corrupts the culture of the school.
…
Merit pay has been tried again and again since the 1920s. Sometimes scores go up, sometimes they don’t, but the programs never seem to make much difference and eventually disappear.
The most rigorous trial of merit pay was conducted recently in Nashville by the National Center on Performance Incentives. It offered an extraordinary bonus of $15,000 to teachers if they could get higher scores from their students. Over a three-year period, there was no difference between the scores obtained by the treatment group or the control group. The bonus didn’t matter.
Roland Fryer of Harvard University just released his study of New York City’s much-touted school-wide merit-pay program.* Fryer says it made no difference in terms of student outcomes and actually depressed performance in some schools and for some groups of students [Diane Ravitch, "Thoughts on the Failure of Merit Pay," Education Week: Bridging Differences, 2011.03.29].
Merit pay doesn’t work, says Ravitch, but the idea never dies. Politicians left and right get caught up in the corporate thinking that schools need to run more like business.
But Ravitch notes that even business guru William Deming saw that merit pay doesn’t work:
Although teachers need and want higher pay, they are strongly opposed to individual merit pay. They know that it destroys the collaboration and teamwork that are essential to the culture of the school. They know this even though few of them are familiar with the work of W. Edwards Deming, the business guru, who warned American business against ratings and merit pay. (See Andrea Gabor’s The Man Who Discovered Quality, Chapter 9.) Deming said it nourishes rivalry and short-term planning, while undermining morale and long-term planning [Diane Ravitch, "Merit Pay Fails Another Test," Education Week: Bridging Differences, 2010.09.28].
Again, maybe there is some set of new policies we can come up with to make South Dakota’s public schools work even better. But Ravitch makes clear that merit pay is not one of those policies. Sections 7 through 16 of HB 1234 need to disappear.
48 Responses to “Ravitch Says Merit Pay “Never Works… Never Dies””
You beat me to the punch on this one. Well done. I don’t know if anyone will listen, but no one can say that the facts back merit pay.
Let’s face facts:
(1) Education is not about competition, and it is not competitive process. It is a cooperative enterprise (sorry if that makes people think of socialism), in which all the teachers cooperate together to help all the students succeed. I cannot tell you the number of confabs we teachers had at SDSU about various students who needed help, and how we could help them individually. When people talk merit pay, trying to turn it into a competition it poisons the atmosphere drastically.
(2) The truth is, everyone in any school knows who the good teachers are, who the excellent teachers are, and who the really bad teachers are. And – here’s the dirty little secret of life in general – usually the reason why the really bad teachers haven’t been fired is because they have someone’s (i.e., administration, and/or political) protection. Or because they what they teach is deemed unimportant compared to what they do regarding extracurricular activities. (Yes, I’m sorry, I’m going to be politically incorrect: I have seen some coaches who were awful teachers, but were kept on because they won games. And what are you going to do about that?)
(3) Education is not a factory, in which you put in standard raw materials, manipulate them in uniform ways, and come out with widgets. What I see, however – again – is the on-going attempt to transform education into a factory production line, ignoring the fact that we are teaching human beings – children – who each have their own rhythms, learning patterns, interests, etc. Teaching is an art – the art of human relations – involving psychology, pedagogy, specific knowledge, compassion, and wisdom, all in one big caring bundle that is called the learning process. That is what great teachers practice. That is why, in the long run, computers can’t replace teachers any more than television has. But it’s going to take a while for our computer-dominated culture to realize that…
Cory, thanks for providing another argument to lower teacher pay.
“I see our public schools in Montana performing very well. We don’t have charter schools. We have a few private schools. We have a group of people who want to privatize public education in our state and we consistently fight it back.
Our public education system does a great job. I don’t think it’s broken. We aren’t interested in doing reform for reform’s sake. I believe in public education; it did a great job for me. It deserves our support and encouragement.”
–Denise Juneau, Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction. the first Native American in Montana history to win a statewide election and who attended Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education from an interview in The Nation.
Thanks larry. It’s been a long day and I needed to see that Juneau statement
This is turning into a great strategy by GDD. Education proponents will spend all session killing this bad plan by the gov and be happy leaving town with nothing. Thanks SDEA
Didn’t matter John if GDD brought this up or not. Education stills comes up empty-again. Until we elect more Democrats its not going to happen.
SDEA can only do so much
Thanks Ms. Fisher, for an excellent comment. Education is truly not a business at all. To do it well, one must love it and love the children.
Great post Eve
“Yes, I’m sorry, I’m going to be politically incorrect: I have seen some coaches who were awful teachers, but were kept on because they won games. And what are you going to do about that?”
Cut sports off the taxpayers’ dime and make them clubs.
Coaches can have an enormous positive influence on a teenager just as important as their teachers.
“Coaches can have an enormous positive influence on a teenager just as important as their teachers.”
But neither coach or teacher can hold a candle to parents.
“Cut sports off the taxpayers’ dime and make them clubs.”
I have spent some time looking at yearbooks from the 1930s and WWII, the Great Depression and the years of government mandated rationing. All of those yearbooks contained pictures of extra-curricular activites. The yearbook itself was probably an extracurricular activity.
It strikes me as odd that taxpayers during the height of the Depression or people deprived of many basics during the didn’t cut debate, newspaper, theater, or sports. Now, however, that’s the first “logical” proposal. It’s clear that why they were the Greatest Generation.
During the Second World War, Winston Churchill’s finance minister said Britain should cut arts funding to support the war effort. Churchill’s response: “Then what are we fighting for?”
Amen, Bill! These days it appears that what we’re “fighting for” is the right of corporations to make a profit. And nothing else.
Cory, ever think that your treatment of me is the same treatment the SDGOP is dishing out to Stace Nelson?
[Not about you, Steve. Put up your own blog post.]
Eve, I think you on to something regarding corporate socialism. This is from a 1960 International Socialist Review:
The educational system had to be thoroughly overhauled, he said, because of the deep-going changes in American civilization. Under colonial, agrarian, small-town life, the child took part in household, community and productive activities which spontaneously fostered capacities for self-direction, discipline, leadership and independent judgment. Such worthwhile qualities were discouraged and stunted by the new industrialized, urbanized, atomized conditions which had disintegrated the family and weakened the influence of religion.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/works/1960/x03.htm
So the Greatest Generation spent money on entertainment instead of taking care of the poor during the Great Depression. Is that what you statists really believe?
Steve,
I’m pretty sure that you’re just itching for a fight so that you can type “statist” “new age” “theocrat” or “Marxist.” I should be smart enough to just walk a way and sigh, but just in case I’m being too cynical about a fellow human, I’ll try to answer you point
I am saying that they understood that humanity does not live by bread alone. Art, philosophy, and sports provide fuel for the soul even if they bake no bread nor till any field. These things are valuable because the enrich and edify. Since you claim to want a Biblical justification for everything, read I Corinthians 10:23-24 All things are lawful for me,[a] but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me,[b] but not all things edify. 24 Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.
I’m saying the Greatest Generation lived that injunction and that those who wish to deny the arts to others are selfish and self-serving.
“I’m saying the Greatest Generation lived that injunction and that those who wish to deny the arts to others are selfish and self-serving.”
LK, I am saying that others should expect someone else to pay for their entertainment. That is coveting. I am not denying others the arts. And if you have enough money to go to the movies, but your neighbor is without food, what does the Bible say we should do?
Down, Steve: “Arts” and “entertainment” are two different categories. Teaching children the arts – as in music, drawing, etc. – increases their reasoning, mathematical, and analytical skills, not to mention making them more creative thinkers in general. All of those skills are required to function and even excel in a business world. Think Steve Jobs.
And, Steve, when it comes to feeding your neighbor, I remember a long debate with you in which you fervently defended NOT feeding your neighbor, because they were “sluggards.”
[sarcasm alert] I’m sending him to your house. I’m pretty sure I can find it on Google maps. I’ll even put gas in his/her car to get there. Heck, I might even drive them there myself. Then I am going to walk around your house and make a list of all the things that I want to covet. [herein endth the sarcasm]
Love the attempt to shift ground Steve; it’s not going to work. You haven’t answered the main question. Why should students be denied extra-curriculars now when people in much more difficult economic times found ways to pay for them? Nor have you answered Bill’s point about the need to fight a cultural heritage which the arts provide and further. Neither have you explained why arts and sports aren’t fuel for the soul and why a culture should not strive to help students access and develop the talent to create that fuel for themselves and others.
By the way, if you are truly worried about a totalitarian state, you wouldn’t want to limit education to only the basic efforts that produce good workers; you would want it to emphasize the arts and philosophy so that students would have intellect and temperament to challenge authority.
should be “fight for a cultural heritage”
“I remember a long debate with you in which you fervently defended NOT feeding your neighbor, because they were “sluggards.””
I do not belief all poor are sluggards. Their are the sick, elderly, etc. And it costs nothing to sit down and sing a song.
LK,
Cory will not let me answer Bill’s BS. No where in the Bible does it say that we have to provide are neighbors art and sports. It does say they we should not covet our neighbors spouse or property. And I would argue that the Bible requires the parents to teach their children, not Ceasar.
The Ark of the Covenant, the tabernacle, and the temple all sound like art to me. Even if the primary purpose was worship, one shouldn’t deny their artistic aspect.
I suspect taxes of some sort paid for David to sing to King Saul.
Sibby is coveting Cory’s blog space and intelligent audience.
He doesn’t pay anything to steal our attention and the bandwidth Cory pays for. I bet he hasn’t sent Cory’s tip box one thin dime and probably writes at least a fourth of the comments, many of them off-topic.
He expresses contempt for other posters and refuses to enter into rational dialogue.
He craves attention and will do anything to get it, even going so far as to insult his own culture and heritage.
Sad Sibby. Selfish and sad.
LK, until the invention of the printing press, no one knew what was in the Bible. It was all communicated with artwork. In fact, the letters we use to write words are artwork. Each letter is a drawing. The thing that distinguishes humans from animals is art and culture. It’s the way we communicate. The way we know one another. Art is quite literally what we are. Music, dance, drama, sculpture, design, architecture, drawing, painting, graphic design… all of it.
Sibby simply has no idea what he is talking about… as usual.
“All art is quite useless.” -Oscar Wilde
Bill,
I agree 100%. Sibby said funding art isn’t in the text of the Bible. I wanted to show him that the practice is at least implied.
I should have left everything alone, but I just get tired that the arts are the first things everyone wants cut.
Elliot, at it’s best, yes… but see also:
“The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.”
—Oscar Wilde
…sorry, not “it’s” but rather “its.”
LK yes, I see. The scribes, presumably were paid.
Unless of course they were slaves.
Also, the little bit of jerk in me wants to point out that the “people from profession x are strongly opposed to this legislation” argument was used, and apparently discarded in our healthcare debate, yet it resurfaces and is given more credibility in this article. If we listen to teachers when they say merit pay is bad, why shouldn’t we listen to doctors when they say PPACA is bad?
Put it this way… no art, no civilization, no books. It’s as simple as that.
Mr. Fleming,
I don’t have a horse in this race. I just wanted to throw out a quote by the ever-intriguing, often-enigmatic Oscar Wilde.
Elliot,
Thanks for bringing us back on point.
My memory may be faulty, but I seem to recall the AMA and other professional groups supported health care reform even if individual doctors opposed it.
In this situation, both members and professional organizations oppose.
You’ll enjoy this then, no doubt, Elliot:
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist5/bierce.html
So the coveting from the selfish left continues. Not one of you has addressed the coveting. And as far as the art origins, I think pagans seems to be the most logical. Remember the golden calf?
The Left has made great strides this week: we rejoice today.
Not even remotely close, Sibby.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/08/01/html/ft_20010801.6.html
Bill,
I think you and I were talking past each other earlier. I was looking for examples of art from the narratives in the Bible not the making of the document itself. I would guess most of the scribes were slaves. Thanks for posting the link about the cave art.
Steve,
Are you saying that the Biblical accounts don’t have God setting down the specifications of the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, and Temple? Are you saying that the descriptions are not artistic?
As I said earlier, it’s pretty clear that all you want to do is type “Marxist,” “leftist” or “new age.” It’s nearly impossible to have a civil debate or discussion with someone who’s goal is to label instead of discuss. I’m done.
Steve, refer to the original post. I hear no covetousness. I simply point out some strong arguments that a particular pay policy does not result in increased performance. See also another post of mine on teacher pay: wherein do you see coveting? I asked what more work I can do, what extra value I can add, to earn more pay. I’m not asking for a handout. I’m asking you what more you want from me. What is my labor worth to you? Or do you covet my labor as you covet my blog traffic (touché, Bill!) and seek not to compensate me?
Oh, and Elliot, I’m going to take a wild guess and say Mr. Wilde was staking out a clever deonotological position: we do not justify art by its usefulness. Ars gratia artis! L’art pour l’art!
Ok, I see what you’re after, LK. How about this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezalel
Notice here that even though God recommended this artist, he deferred final judgement to the people. So yeah. I’d call that public support for the arts in the Bible.
Good call, LK
“Steve, refer to the original post. I hear no covetousness.”
Cory, read your thread. Someone pointed out bad teachers are keep around because they are good coaches and asked what to do about that. I said to cut sports. And then I got piled on for that I idea. My response is that making outher pay for your kids entertainment is coveting. Just because you socialists can’t handle reality I bring to this site does not mean I am coveting anything.
Cory, Bill who?
Leave a Reply