Some while back, I suggested on Twitter that members of Congress should get merit pay. It doesn’t seem fair that all of them are paid exactly the same, no matter how effective or ineffective they are. The same might be said of state legislators. Why don’t they get merit pay? They are eager to impose it on teachers, based on student scores, but they don’t want it for themselves.
The problem with the idea is this: how do you judge effectiveness?
A reader has a good proposal:
I think we should push for MORE merit pay, but in this way: our state and federal legislators should be paid based on how well their constituents are doing. percent of unemployment, average family income, property values, crime rate, health/illness rates, etc. Of course, they will complain about how they can’t control these factors, but it’s very similar to what we are judged on.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If legislators were on merit pay they would be paying us.
The problem I see with the merit pay scheme above is that it will punish legislators from poor districts – the above scheme needs to be aggregated in some way – so that say representatives from the Upper East Side don’t get away scott free because they represent the 1% – they need to be held responsible for the South Bronx in addition to their 1% constituency.
Well, that’s an easy one. Pay them for value-added, just as they are now imposing on schools. Those who live in rich districts will get higher value-added than those who live in impoverished districts. And then the legislators will understand why value-added is nonsense.
Sue,
You just made the same argument that teachers have been making about merit pay.
None would be in the 10%.
We could add in approval ratings as well.
Bravo, I wish it could be done.
They are very accountable to their own constituents via an informal value-added system as, If they are not adding enough value, they lose their jobs.
politicians have been getting merit pay for as long as the hills are old. Here in Wisconsin Scott Walker just got 50 million or so of it. I wonder how much George W. Bush would have been merited for giving us NCLB. After all he did ask the tough question…and I quote, “Is our children learning?”. I’ve got a better idea. Remember how slaves used to be able to buy their freedom? I’d like a price put on “teaching” that a teacher could pay (or the parents could fund raise) to be freed from the slavish control politicians have on them, their classrooms and their students. What would it cost 5 grand? 10? There’s got to be a price.
We could do it on paper and publish it. Who’s good with stats?
Unfortunately, I don’t think merit pay will be going away. I just found this on the timeline for affordable care act.
IMPROVING QUALITY AND LOWERING COSTS
Paying Physicians Based on Value Not Volume
Effective January 1, 2015
A new provision will tie physician payments to the quality of care they provide. Physicians will see their payments modified so that those who provide higher value care will receive higher payments than those who provide lower quality care. (http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/index.html)
Dr. Ravitch your analogy of merit pay with Legislators and Educators is brilliant. Additionally it goes to the source of this merit-pay-debacle. Conceptually earning pay based on performance is an inbred American Capitalist Mentality that will never go away; and perhaps to a certain extent it’s vital to our nations well being. Merit pay has a place; it belongs in the private sector but NOT in the public sector. These are two very different entities and when we try to mesh one with the other the end result will ONLY be what our nation has been trying to rid itself of since it’s inception: Inequality.
Public Servants strive each and every day to serve ALL it’s constituents. The constituents that often take the greatest effort, work and time to assist are the those that are impoverished, disenfranchised and educationally deficient. To ensure ALL constituents are provided for equally is the goal. This has always been the goal and should never stop being the goal. The means to accomplish this goal must be realistic and attainable. The cure is to provide the public servants the necessary resources in the areas where there’s the most need: merit pay will only exacerbate the opposite. Perhaps the only way to get those that created the ways and means of these unrealitic, unattainable goals to understand this is to place them in the same system they created: Merit pay for our Legislators.
Thanks gain for all your effort and time Dr. Ravitch.
ask brings up some great points. i usually offer a more concise assertion: public schools are products of the societies in which they exist. if you want to fix schools, fix society…and good luck with that.
State Legislator (and the Governor’s) pay should tied to GDP growth, the unemployment rate and the spread between the incomes of the top 10% in the state and the bottom 50%. If you tied their pay to the incomes of the bottom 50% you better believe that they would make sure that those at the bottom rungs of society would get the things they need to learn and become productive members of society. Especially if 50% of the legislator’s pay was tied to this merit scheme. if they truly believe merit pay works they should have no problem agreeing to this. Just my humble opinion.