Jeannie Kaplan is an elected member of the Denver school board. Denver is one of the major sites for corporate reform. Several commenters have asked about Denver’s pay-for-performance plan. I invited Kaplan to explain how it works and with what results, which she does here:
The (D)Evolution of Denver’s Pay-for-Performance Model
This is a story about what happens when a successful “pay for performance” (PFP) education model collides with Broad trained, Gates and Walton funded businessmen in an urban city school landscape. The place is Denver, Colorado. The PFP is called Professional Compensation, ProComp for short. The year of the collision is 2008. But first, some history.
Denver Public Schools was one of the first districts to address the merit pay issue. In 1999 through a collaborative effort between the district and the teachers’ union, Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA), a two year pilot was put into place. It was based on meeting objectives teachers set with principals. In 2004 a Joint Task Force on Teacher Compensation was formed, leading to a vote by DCTA and the Board of Education in 2005 to ask the voters to approve a special mill levy for teacher merit pay.
In November 2005 such a vote occurred, and the measure passed 58% to 42% . A $25 million fund, adjusted for inflation, was established to be overseen by 3 representatives from DPS , 3 from DCTA, and 2 from the community. The 2005 version of ProComp was NOT a strictly PFP plan; rather it was a hybrid consisting of four components: 1) student growth based on teacher-principal decided objectives, 2) market incentives based on hard-to-serve schools determined by numbers of students receiving Free and Reduced Lunch, English Language Learners and Special Education students and hard-to-staff assignments, such as middle school math, English as a second language SpEd speech and language specialist and school psychologists. 3) knowledge and skills based on completing and implementing professional development units, and 4) professional evaluation based on five revised standards and a body of student work. This plan was a long time coming and was carefully and very collaboratively developed.
As ProComp began to be implemented, a large surplus developed because incentives were not large enough to woo teachers into hard to serve schools, and there were not enough hard to staff positions to spend all the $25 million. Something needed to happen.
2008 – The DCTA contract was up at the end of August 2008; the surplus was big; DPS had just financed and re-financed its pension for $750 million, losing hundreds of millions of dollars due to the timing and method of incurring this new debt. It was a perfect storm for then superintendent now U.S. Senator Michael Bennet and his then chief operating officer and current superintendent Tom Boasberg to demand changes in the voter-approved compensation package.
What happened next changed the original “pay for performance” hybrid methodology to a business-based bonus system. And with this the teaching profession in Denver has fundamentally changed as well. The business guys came in and negotiated as business people often do with employees: they target employees as bad guys defining them as greedy and lazy, while they, the business men, swoop in as “the saviors.” Mr. Bennet, Mr. Boasberg and their team threatened not to renew the DCTA master agreement , thus shutting down the union, and they threatened to go back to Denver’s citizens for another vote voiding the 2005 mill levy increase, thus depriving teachers of any extra compensation. The union negotiators were subjected to bullying, were forced to negotiate well into the night and early in the morning with little sleep. This resulted in a crack within the bargaining team.
DCTA was able to secure 2 minor salary increases that would be available EVERY YEAR to ALL teachers, but its victory was relatively small. And the salary caps were much lower, resulting in professional teachers relying on the once a year business bonus model. Teachers no longer have the financial security of negotiated salary increases because their once a year bonus – distributed in November – vary from year to year, are non-existing some years. Family budgeting becomes difficult. (I can hear business folks saying, “Well, no one is guaranteed a certain amount of money,” as they cash their huge end of the year bonuses. Look people, public education isn’t and shouldn’t be a business. We are talking about the education of ALL children, and we are talking about the adults serving children.) Public education is not a business
And then, of course, there is the pension issue. While bonuses are pensionable, the base salary of teachers does not increase significantly, resulting in lower overall salaries for teachers. With the current system of bonuses and very small salary increases, the amount of many teachers’ monthly pension will most likely go down. And with enough of these smaller pension eligible salaries and with enough teachers ultimately deciding not to teach for as many years, DPS retirement payouts may also decline. Get the picture?
All new DPS must participate in ProComp, yet charter schools, an ever-growing and important component in the DPS “portfolio of schools,” are NOT subject to this pay model. Each charter establishes its own pay scale. This is important to note because Denver now has 40+ charter schools out of over 150 total schools.
So while Denver Public Schools talks about the importance of its three “R’s” – recruiting, rewarding and retaining excellent teachers, the fourth “R”, results of its actions have added to the overall change in the profession. Recruitment is often focusing on short term teachers from programs such as Teach for America, rewarding teachers has been transformed to one time bonuses, and retaining the best is still open for debate. Have some teachers benefitted from what I will call Act II of ProComp? Absolutely. Those in hard-to-serve schools filling hard-to staff positions have seen the most benefits. But for the vast majority of teachers in Denver Public Schools, the change in ProComp has not provided a stable and permanent salary increase, and the initial wishes of Denver’s voters has been significantly altered.
Act I of this PFP experiment showed great promise. Did it need to be tweaked? Yes, but with the history of experimentation and collaboration behind it winning solutions could most probably have been found. Act II has been constructed on a business model centered on competition and bonuses. Has it been successful? Well, the money is being paid out and that is a good thing for sure. But the teaching profession is changing profoundly in Denver. As Act III opens, Denver Public Schools and its PFP prototype will have some new challenges, for Colorado has passed legislation mandating new teacher evaluations, 50% of which is based on student performance. How will that fit in with the already established PFP? Denver anxiously awaits how this will play out.
Re the pensions: Colorado is one of fifteen states where all or many of its public employees do NOT pay into Social Security. “Merit pay” plans are especially disastrous in those states. Teachers and others in those states are already shafted thanks to WEP/GPO.
These are the states:
Alaska
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Georgia (certain local governments)
Illinois
Kentucky (certain local governments)
Louisiana
Maine
Massachusetts
Missouri
Nevada
Ohio
Rhode Island (certain local governments)
Texas
Source: NEA
Actually, in Missouri, it is my understanding, due to the fact that the legislators cannot touch the pension fund, which is run by an independent board elected by the teachers and others who are part of it so that our pension fund is is excellent shape. Unfortunately, when I retire, hopefully sooner than later, at my age I’ll end up paying half my retirement if friggin health insurance payments-so much for “retiring”.
Another problem I have is that I cannot collect any SS, even though I contributed to it from when I was 16 until I started teaching when I was 38. Those monies are essentially lost to me even though I am “vested” in the SS system. So as many other teachers in MO who have worked other jobs and have paid into SS we are hosed. Effing excrement of a bovine origin.
Am I bitter with our capitalistic economic system, hell ya! Got hosed on the housing market debacle and continue getting hosed on this aspect. Just a simple Spanish teacher who only wishes to “get” what he put in. I’m not asking for the moon. But then again, I guess we can all dream-ha friggin ha!!
You really get the shaft when you are a teacher or other public employee in a state that doesn’t pay into SS, yet you have paid years into the system. Only if you have 30 years in does the WEP not apply.
What gets me is the fact I get a little $300 a month pension from Nevada PERS, but Social Security will reduce my benefit some 50 dollars because of this. If I don’t get back into regular full-time work or win some kind of lottery, I am going to hurt very, very badly because my SS benefit will not be that much.
The situation regarding social security is the same here in Nevada. The only saving grace in our pension is that it is linked with the police and fire fighters. They are still popular here in Nevada….Maybe until some of the rest of us retire or we can get rid of the reformy dementia we are suffering from it will stat intact.
The research supporting any sort of merit pay program for teachers is weak; the earlier version may have been less destructive but it was still probably flawed. What was the evidence that it worked, and if there isn’t any, why waste public funds on such programs?
Leonie Haimson
Hi Diane,
This is a bit off the topic, but I learned through Gotham Schools that wunderkind statistician Nate Silver commented on teacher evaluations on Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/166yeo/iama_blogger_for_fivethirtyeight_at_the_new_york/c7tbypu). His comments are brief, but he’s skeptical about the idea and hopefully will look more into it in the future. It’s great to see someone else with a sophisticated statistical mind and social influence weigh in on this issue.
A couple of things to note:
1. While ProComp was designed to incent a number of intended outcomes, the actual financial gains promised to teachers were not great enough to achieve the intended outcomes.
As Ms. Kaplan notes above, one of the big goals of ProComp Act I was to encourage top performing teachers to move to schools with hard to serve populations, and presumably lower test scores. For making this switch, teachers would be rewarded ~$4,000 per year. With an average DPS teacher salary of $41,000, the promise of a 10% increase didn’t warrant making any move, and, thus, teachers chose to stay on the traditional means of receiving raises.
2. Once ProComp Act II went into effect and the vast majority of teachers in DPS came under the system, DPS began to “play” with the bonuses received by teachers. As anyone with experience in the corporate world knows, management is reluctant to hand out bonuses to all but the highest performing individuals.
To this end, District management implemented measurements determining “bonus” eligibility that are outside of individual teacher’s control (for example, overall academic growth of all students across the school and the school’s overall academic ranking). Then there is the “desirable” background bonus Ms. Kaplan mentions. This bonus applies to people who have academic credentials in hard-to-hire fields like mathematics and science. No matter what happens in a school, these teachers receive their bonus.
This last has been great for my household, as my wife works for DPS and is in a hard-to-hire specialty. Each year, we look forward to that bonus check!
These serve as simple examples of why ProComp Acts I and II have had little effect on overall District academic performance. In fact, DPS is on Colorado Department of Education’s “accredited but on watch” list and has been so for years. Granted, the district’s academic scores have increased over the past 5 years, but the influx of middle class families as a result of massive redevelopment across Denver has likely accounted for that growth.
(For those unfamiliar with Denver, ~1/3 of the city has been redeveloped over the past 10 years as a result of residential infill at the former Stapleton Airport and Lowery Air Force base, which was closed under the Federal BRAC program, These have created “middle class” safety zones and islands of high performing schools serving thousands of students.)
But Denver is not unique in the failure of pay for performance to affect academic outcomes. The RAND Corporation, on the go-to research entities across multiple subject domains, published a student titled No Evidence That Incentive Pay for Teacher Teams Improves Student Outcomes. The document can be found here: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9649.html. No summary of this report is needed, however. The title says it all.
“While ProComp was designed to incent a number of intended outcomes, the actual financial gains promised to teachers were not great enough to achieve the intended outcomes.”
HA friggin HA.
“As anyone with experience in the corporate world knows, management is reluctant to hand out bonuses to all but the highest performing individuals”
Bullshit, the bonuses go to those who make the decision to whom the bonuses (and I mistyped that as “boneses” which is what those decision makers have when they make those boneses decisions) will go.
Save the pay for performance for insurance salesman!!
not only insurance salesman but used car salesman too!
A couple of things to note:
While ProComp was designed to incent a number of intended outcomes, the actual financial gains promised to teachers were not great enough to achieve the intended outcomes.
As Ms. Kaplan notes above, one of the big goals of ProComp Act I was to encourage top performing teachers to move to schools with hard to serve populations, and presumably lower test scores. For making this switch, teachers would be rewarded ~$4,000 per year. With an average DPS teacher salary of $41,000, the promise of a 10% increase didn’t warrant making any move, and, thus, teachers chose to stay on the traditional means of receiving raises.
Once ProComp Act II went into effect and the vast majority of teachers in DPS came under the system, DPS began to “play” with the bonuses received by teachers. As anyone with experience in the corporate world knows, management is reluctant to hand out bonuses to all but the highest performing individuals.
To this end, District management implemented measurements determining “bonus” eligibility that are outside of individual teacher’s control (for example, overall academic growth of all students across the school and the school’s overall academic ranking). Then there is the “desirable” background bonus Ms. Kaplan mentions. This bonus applies to people who have academic credentials in hard-to-hire fields like mathematics and science. No matter what happens in a school, these teachers receive their bonus.
This last has been great for my household, as my wife works for DPS and is in a hard-to-hire specialty. Each year, we look forward to that bonus check!
These serve as simple examples of why ProComp Acts I and II have had little effect on overall District academic performance. In fact, DPS is on Colorado Department of Education’s “accredited but on watch” list and has been so for years. Granted, the district’s academic scores have increased over the past 5 years, but the influx of middle class families as a result of massive redevelopment across Denver has likely accounted for that growth.
(For those unfamiliar with Denver, ~1/3 of the city has been redeveloped over the past 10 years as a result of residential infill at the former Stapleton Airport and Lowery Air Force base, which was closed under the Federal BRAC program, These have created “middle class” safety zones and islands of high performing schools serving thousands of students.)
But Denver is not unique in the failure of pay for performance to affect academic outcomes. The RAND Corporation, on the go-to research entities across multiple subject domains, published a student titled No Evidence That Incentive Pay for Teacher Teams Improves Student Outcomes. The document can be found here: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9649.html. No summary of this report is needed, however. The title says it all.
Thanks for the very informative post…twice. So are you “Issac Bickerstaff” or “Christopher Scott?”
Cut it out LG. Didn’t you know that those reformy types think that we will believe everything they say without question.
Post du jour perhaps?
Well I didn’t read that our poster and his alias were reformers…more like whistle blowers. N’est-ce pas?
This is no surprise. Unlike business, where more profit is (presumably) linked to higher performance, the cash flow of schools is unrelated to the performance of the organization by ANY metric. Thus, when the cash flow is disrupted by an economic downturn or State legislation that shifts costs to local school districts there is less money available to reward “high performing” teachers unless you turn to taxpayers— who want “merit pay” but don’t want to have their taxes increased to pay for it. This disconnect between cash flow and organizational performance is an obvious but often overlooked fact of life that has undercut “merit pay”plans more than once.
Jeanne Kaplan’s window on the world at DPS is illuminating to the public whose sources of knowledge about the inside financial situation and other areas which impact the educational achievements of DPS are seldom if ever investigated, let alone make the news or Denver Post.
The financial health of the district is in a descending state due to ill-advised financial
investments made by a recently former Superintendent. Ms Kaplan tried to alert the board of this impending debacle, but was attacked by Boasberg and some members of the board instead of being heeded. The truth of her assessment is becoming more evident by the year. The belittling, bullying tactics of Superintendents Bennett and Boasberg are deplorable and contribute to a declining morale amongst teachers. Depicting teachers as lazy and/or greedy is not only insulting, but flagrantly untrue! No group can be denigrated in such a scurrilous way! Personally, as a teacher with DPS I normally put in 65+ hour weeks and joyfully did so! As stated, public education is not a business, and when viewed as such, decisions made by “businessmen” often are ill suited to progress and success in schools. Painfully short sighted money drivers, such as the poorly paid participates who have little to no university training, yet are thrust into classrooms in the Teach for America system, and lowly paid “baby teachers” have been lauded by Boasberg, while ignoring the academic results! Truly a corporatist view of education. Anyone who investigates the academic results of TFA and the corporate monetary based charter school movement will easily see if academic excellence is the prime movers in these experiments. Clearly it is not. The value of experienced, older teachers are sneered at and purposefully, often targeted for dismissal. Why? Money! The total inability of corporate, educational czars whose only experience is in a bottom line business, which is far afield from academia whose bottom line is an educated populace. I would hazard a guess that if
Boasberg, Bill Gates or any other “expert” were put into a hard to serve school, they would face an ignominious exit!
Pro Comp was designed as a system so teachers could control their PDU’s, Student Growth, Evaluations, Hard to Serve, etc, the district decided to change the plan so only teachers in their first 14 years old service would be able to receive bonus pay and salary building. Veteran teachers were pushed out of Pro Comp, we should of all stayed on the regular salary system because then we could of been paid just like the rest of 900 Grant!