We will have more commentary on the Denver teacherss’ strike. Here, Fred Klonsky reminds us of the much-ballyhooed, but ultimately failed merit pay called ProComp, that substituted merit pay for adequate salaries.
Don’t pay attention to Democratic Senator Michael Bennett, who claims to favor the teachers but was superintendent of the Denver public schools who launched corporate reform and lost many millions in tricky financial deals while he was in charge. He was anti-union when he was superintendent and is a big supporter of VAM.
Merit pay is another concept from business that fails in education. Teachers are not working on a commission selling cars. They are generally doing their best, but the students they are teaching vary greatly and so do scores on which merit pay is generally based. Merit pay is a token reward for some score based interpretation of performance, and it is a lot cheaper than actually paying teachers a living wage. Worst of all, merit pay fails in education, but that does not stop the patrimonial system that makes teachers unfairly compete for crumbs. It is “social-Darwinism” labeled as “reform.”
You’re right, retired teacher. If the billionaires can divide labor so that they compete for crumbs, workers won’t raise the pitchforks against those who are plundering America.
It was good to see ABC nightly news cover the Denver strike.
Merit pay has never worked in any industry or organization, public or private. It fails in business as much as it fails in schools.
Teachers in Denver, competing against each other for scraps of pay based on the dubious scores of students taking dubious standardized tests, have a far greater grievance than even did we striking Los Angeles teachers. Godspeed, Denver teachers! You are making history. You are on the right side of history. Don’t give up until your demands are met! Keep your socks dry and your bellies hydrated too.
‘Us’, not ‘we’ striking Los Angeles teachers. Oops!
This is (one of many) good article on bonuses versus salary increases as a compensation model:
“But sustained raises for American workers may be possible only if employers can break a habit: handing out one-time bonuses in place of salary increases.
A growing preference among employers for one-time awards instead of raises that keep building over time has been quietly transforming the employment landscape for two decades. But it was accelerated by the recession’s intensity, which made employers especially cautious about increasing labor costs.”
There’s a whole debate over whether bonuses are a good deal for middle income people, when bonuses replace increases in wages, but you’ll never hear a word of that debate in ed reform.
A bonus versus a wage increase is (arguably) a bad way to compensate middle class workers, because middle class people (as opposed to say, millionaires) need steady wage growth OVER TIME so they can compound their earnings, but that was never discussed in ed reform.
The teachers have a point. If bonuses replace regular wage increases that is not a good deal for middle class earners, which these teachers have (apparently) figured out.
Ed reformers should stop taking advice on compensation models from their billionaire patrons, and read something outside the echo chamber.
I suggest the teachers keep it simple.
A one time bonus versus a wage increase is a BAD DEAL. It’s a bad deal for the teachers who get the bonuses and the teachers who don’t.
They’ll make much more over time with regular wage increases.
Don’t reject it because it’s “merit pay”. Reject it because it’s a rip off. Teachers will be much better off financially with wage increases over time. This is a circa 1990’s flim flam. They offer bonuses rather than wage increases not to benefit teachers, but because it’s cheaper than wage increases.
I think ed reformers spend so much time “honoring” teachers and “empowering” teachers and “loving” teachers because they don’t want to talk about how they’re not big fans of PAYING teachers.
I always wonder if the academics who come up with these bonus pay schemes would accept this in their own workplace.
Let’s adopt the ed reform bonus system in higher ed. They only get a pay increase if their students ace standardized tests. We’ll re-administer the SAT and ACT after each year of college. The professors who “add value” get a wage increase in the form of a bonus, and the rest don’t.
It’s a compensation structure. Predictably, ed reformers chose the compensation structure that is the worst deal for middle class workers and then sold it as a good deal.
Over time, people figure out it’s a bad deal, because they notice that over time they’re losing ground. They’re right.
I think it’s probably because we have so few middle class people in positions of power in government and think tanks. They simply don’t consider things like “bonuses versus wages, growth over time” because none of these concerns are part of their lived experiences.
If you’re offered a one-time bonus versus a wage increase, take the wage increase. Every time. You’ll be much better off over 10, 20, 30 years. Bonuses work for millionaires, not for people who make 50k a year.
Ed reformers are all excited because Donald Trump mentioned vouchers in his speech:
“The transcript of President Trump’s State of the Union speech that was released by the White House mysteriously capitalized the phrase “School Choice,” as if it were the title of a law: “To help support working parents, the time has come to pass School Choice for Americans’ children.”
Unlike some of the president’s other domestic policy proposals, though, the language about school choice was accompanied by no details about a budget or forthcoming legislative action.
So what was with the capital letters?”
They really have to WORK to ignore public schools to the extent that they do- it’s a full time job. They operate exclusively in the “charter/voucher” column, which takes work, given that it’s something like NINE per cent of students and families.
I saw Democrats in Congress debated a bill that benefits PUBLIC schools yesterday. The room was 3/4’s empty. They don’t even attempt to work for public school families. They simply don’t show up. There is NO mention of this bill on echo chamber websites. That’s because it’s a PUBLIC school bill.
As a person working inside a low-income school when ProComp was pushed onto teachers (sadly BY UNION LEADERS), I find it interesting that few grasp the fact that as teachers were told they would receive ‘bonuses’ for working in ‘hard-to-serve’ schools, these same ‘hard-to-serve’ schools (lowest income, largely non-White) were simultaneously going to be hit with endless test-score-based ‘reform’ invasions — invasions which demanded that teachers lose autonomy, lose professional respect, lose longevity status, lose any chance for having a voice in the suddenly punitive teachers-are-the-problem attitude coming from outsiders all over the nation. Getting a ‘bonus’ for working inside a school where teachers were treated ONLY as the problem and never heard could not in any way compensate for the terrible, never stable, never predictable test-score-based invasions. Because of NCLB and RttT, teachers were blamed and purposefully PUSHED out of the schools, new teachers were endlessly brought in, fewer and fewer hires got to experience autonomy and creative outlet. The bonuses came in — just as the job itself was turned into one few could stomach.
“Merit Pay” or “Variable Pay”…