Tennessee was one of the first states to win Race to the Top funding, but most districts have not been willing to offer bonuses for higher test scores, as the authors of RTTT hoped. In fact, the number of districts doing so is declining.
Four years after receiving permission to tie teacher pay to their performance, some school districts are moving away from paying teachers based on their evaluations.
“Four districts changed their teacher pay plans in the first year after legislators passed a 2010 law to allow districts to tie salaries to teacher evaluations. The law was part of Tennessee’s successful effort to win federal education funding through the Obama administration’s Race to the Top grant program.
“That number shot up to 57 districts — out of 142 statewide — in 2014 but fell this year to 54, state officials told lawmakers in Nashville on Wednesday.
“Officials did not say which districts had opted out, or why the pace of districts adopting performance-pay plans had slowed.
“But the stagnation could signal that superintendents and school boards are hesitant about putting too much stock in the state’s teacher evaluation system, which was among the first in the nation to use standardized test scores….
“Merit pay is just one of several options available to districts to differentiate pay under a rule that the State Board of Education revised in 2013. The most common option in Tennessee is paying teachers more to teach at high-needs schools, or in subjects where there is a dearth of qualified teachers.
“Officials at the Board and the Department of Education view differentiated pay as a means to attract and retain effective teachers, whom they say do not always have experience or advanced degrees.
“But many educators say teacher pay just needs to be raised in general.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How many effective teachers have little to no experience and/or lack the proper educational background?
There goes that theory that anyone can be a teacher. Such policies denigrates profession. No wonder salaries are low in so many states – they’d pay minimum wage if they could get away with it.
And here in NYS you need a master’s degree plus continuing education credits plus pass an exam to prove yourself worthy – except if you are TFA. Yes, our pay is better, but new teachers need a second job while they live at home in order to make ends meet and pay back those student loans.
TFA are automatically deemed “highly effective” for hire. They are not certified, but get quickie-lube certifications. Many don’t have Masters degrees, but they get weekend Masters degrees by Relay and other TFA affiliations. They also get assistance with any loans, preferential rental housing, and gifts of cash from their alumni colleges (I’ve seen this personally with Princeton). I’m sure I’m missing the other perks.
Pay for Performance plans fail for a number of reasons, not the least of these is the absence of money to sustain them over time.
The elephant in the room: in a time of fiscal restraint and cutbacks and uncertainty—with the future looking no better (or even worse) than the present—then “the absence of money to sustain them over time” makes merit pay plans look like the misleading phony gimmicks they are.
And this is true of a great many rheephorm “ideas”: they aren’t sustainable. They haven’t worked, aren’t working, and nothing suggests they will work in the future as promised.
Thank you for saying what needed to be said.
😎
Exactly right. My district (the large one that shall not be named) has had performance pay tied to evaluations since 2010. This past year I finally had whatever combination of metrics I needed to actually get it, but the district has a budget shortfall. It’s 2 months into the school year and there’s no word on whether bonuses will happen. Luckily the union negotiated pay-for-experience raises two years ago, and the district agreed.
I have been teaching in Nashville for the past 7 years and my pay hasn’t changed- at least not enough for me to even notice it. In other fields, pay increases as a person gets more experience- but not in teaching. I would not recommend this career to anyone. Find a job where you have the hope of eventually earning more money as you gain experience. If I were not close to retirement age I would be looking for another job as hard as I could.
Tying teacher bonuses/merit pay to “student outcomes” on standardized tests is equivalent to giving doctors merit pay based on “health outcomes” on their patients. The doctors who serve the middle and upper classes will always have patients with better health than the doctors who serve low socio-economic patients.
It’s poverty stupid!
If you aren’t OUTRAGED, you aren’t paying ATTENTION!!!
There are always rumblings of this in medicine and doctors throw a fit, using same arguments teachers use. You can.bet if doctors had across the board, one-sized merit pay there would be a mass exodus from high risk specialties and low income areas, where VAM scores would be lower. Even more interesting is if the doctor VAM models were like teaching and all doctors are paid and careers ended based on cholesterol and lipid tests. Your patient have high triglycerides? Sorry, Doc. You must be “ineffective” as a healer. Accountability, you know.
But sadly, as the 1%ers are further isolated from true America, it may come to that. The rich can afford concierges and home built ERs. The rest of us do not get doctors, but Internet kiosks or Treat For America pseudo physicians.
Excellent analogy, Tim. Concise and understandable even to lay persons. Thank you.
Don’t know if you-all saw this:
“Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often high-stakes testing in the nation’s public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful.”
I think admitting their role is long overdue but it is nice to see someone in Duncanland admit a mistake. Once. This one time 🙂
I also don’t agree with the Democrat’s “2%” plan. I read the House bill and it’s another unfunded reporting mandate for public schools, who are drowning in ed reform mandates as it is. Unless it comes with full funding, in writing, guaranteed, and no punishment aspects I hope public schools reject that approach.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/obama-administration-calls-for-limits-on-testing-in-schools.html?module=Notification&version=BreakingNews®ion=FixedTop&action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=53095424&pgtype=Homepage&_r=0
Urged SCHOOLS to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful? Schools?
Of course it’s the teachers’ fault and by extension the public schools under the complete control of the teachers unions that have promulgated the overbearing testing regime.
“On the left, parents and unions objected to tying tests to teacher evaluations and said tests hamstrung educators’ creativity. They accused the companies writing the assessments of commercializing the fiercely local tradition of American schooling.”
I would also like to congratulate the NYTimes for finally, finally admitting that there are people who support and care about and value public schools who do not work in one and are not labor union members. This is practically revolutionary on their part! Bravo for bucking the ed reform “movement” narrative, which sets this up as “reformers versus labor unions”. I reject that.
The article linked to in this blog post cites the Kingsport school district as being very accepting of merit pay, based on sources they cite. But I think it’s important to note what kind of demographics Kingsport has. According to this wikipedia article, it is a mostly white, stronger middle class community.
If this is supposed to be a genuine strategy for turning around education for the have-nots, then it needs to be working in lower income communities.
Another BAD idea! His about WE do the same for politicians and the DEFORMERS? Plus, lovers of high-stakes testing need to take those ridiculous tests.
One question:
Who determines the “good” teacher”? Politicians far removed or qualified administrators. I say qualified because not all administrators are really that adept at judging, Still, those far removed who have no comprehension of the many problems which teachers in those districts face are as we all know totally incompetent.
We used to believe in working together to build a great educational system rather than pit teacher against teacher, school against school.
Our public schools system in Memphis, Shelby County Schools, emailed teachers this week about the new merit pay plan. They have let Stand for Children in the door. This is what was sent:
SCS Teachers,
The District’s Compensation Department and Stand for Children’s Educator Network will be hosting three discussion forums in the coming weeks as a way to help develop solutions regarding career pathways that would be implemented in the 2016-17 school year. Your attendance is requested because the decisions made about career pathways will directly affect teachers.
The discussions will be held on Monday, October 26, Wednesday, October 28, and Monday, November 2. Each will take place 5:30 – 7 p.m. at the SCS Teaching & Learning Academy (TLA), 2485 Union Ave.
The objective of these forums is to provide opportunities for educators to share input on:
• Roles that will be implemented in 2016-17
• How educators will be selected to fill these roles
• How educators across the District should be recognized and honored
We look forward to working with you to continually improve our education system for students, families and educators!