Allene Magill, writing on behalf of the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, explains why teachers don’t want “merit pay” based on test scores. They have no objection to extra pay for extra work or other kind of performance, but tying their compensation to test scores is offensive to them.
“The most rewarding aspect of teaching occurs when a former student lets an educator know the difference he or she made in their life. After more than 40 years as an educator, I’ve experienced that many times. I assure you that not once has a former student told me how much he appreciated my contribution to his score on a standardized test. Students have, however, talked about the importance of their relationship with me as their teacher — the encouragement to work hard, the extra attention to help them grasp a concept, a kind word when life got tough, extra responsibilities that built confidence and leadership experience, and making time for the arts and non “core” subjects.
“We’ve committed a disservice to all students and educators over the past 20 years by focusing on performance on standardized tests and reducing opportunities for building great student relationships. Initially, standardized tests were reserved for core content every few years, and teachers could maintain enough flexibility to nurture and support students. Now teacher evaluations are tied to all content. No subject can be studied without the student taking an assessment that stamps her effort with a score while also passing judgment on her teacher.”
Pay for test scores is demeaning to teachers. Yet Governor Nathan Deal and his Education Reform Commission insist that every school district develop a plan to do it.
Please, someone tell Governor Deal that merit pay has been tried for a century and has never worked. Teachers need to collaborate, not complete.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These teachers get it!
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They sure do! Go Georgia teachers.
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just fix collaborate not compete, typo complete
I want to forward! THANKS!
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Cut and paste, make your corrections and then forward.
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Good that they’re doing this.
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I’m so proud of Georgia teachers!
Magill stated it well when she emphasized that one of the most important challenges of teaching is to build relationships with students and to create a classroom/school environment where students can build positive relationships among themselves.
There is a reason why universities do not only look at SAT/ACT scores when they admit students. They could save themselves a lot of work in the admissions departments, but they know that the SAT/ACT tests are not perfect or complete determiners of a students’ academic potential.
Placing high stakes of any kind on a test necessitates that said test be 100% valid. I’ve never seen a test like that. Ever. For that reason and for so many others that readers of this blog already know, tests should never be used solely to determine anything in education.
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And apparently, based on what has been reported here in the past, SAT and ACT scores do not predict much about college performance. The most reliable predictor of success is high school grades.
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You can be proud of Georgia teachers. But, unfortunately, Governor Nathan Deal and his Republican cronies will implement this idea and shove it down Georgia teachers’ throats regardless of their input, expertise, or opinions.
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I’ve written it before and it bears repeating:
rheephormistas know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
😎
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December 17, 2015
About AJC’s Jay Bookman on Gov. Deal’s merit pay for teachers
Jay Bookman’s AJC opinion column, “Merit pay for teachers a great idea … in theory” (link below), should be taken to heart. However, take care with his opening paragraph:
“Theoretically, merit pay sounds great. You take the industrial model of quality improvement — measuring output and rewarding those producers who perform best — and you simply apply it to education. It’s such a simple concept: What could go wrong?”
“[M]easuring output and rewarding those producers who perform best” mischaracterizes “the industrial model of quality improvement” for the simple reason there is no such thing as “the industrial model of quality improvement.”
Industrial model? Yes. Quality improvement? Yes. But not “industrial model of quality improvement.”
The reality is that there are principles and methods of quality improvement that have proven workable in industry as well as in education, in government, and elsewhere. Specifically, proven quality improvement principles and methods reject merit pay, pay for performance, management by objectives, targets without methods, SMART Goals for their own sake, and such other “evil practices.”
The fact that one’s perspective may be limited to quality improvement applied to industry should not lead one to think quality improvement principles and methods are nowhere else applicable. An insidious source of such thinking is that quality improvement has nothing to do with ever needing quality improvement of leadership, that quality improvement is something only lowly workers – such as teachers – must do, and that if each of them would just “execute with fidelity” then the results will magically add up to quality. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet this untruth is a common aspect of the business model applied to education with limiting and often destructive consequences.
So hopefully our Georgia State Board of Education and Superintendent Richard Woods and all local Boards of Education and superintendents will consider the points Bookman makes about the unworkability of merit pay and then take the moral high-ground to reject the evil practice, so as to better position themselves to improve the quality of their leadership, continually.
Ed Johnson
Advocate for Quality in Public Education
Atlanta GA
http://jaybookman.blog.myajc.com/2015/12/15/merit-pay-for-teachers-a-great-idea-in-theory/
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