Part II: Merit Pay and Christie’s Eduction Reform Plan

Merit pay, charter schools and tenure reform are key components of Governor Christie’s  education reform plan. As a teacher of ten years, still without tenure because I have switched schools three times, I know tenure needs to be reformed.  Let us leave that for another day.  For now, let’s focus on merit pay and charter schools.

Merit Pay

Before I go into my analysis, let’s start by getting a few things straight. First, 63% of the  public is against merit pay, as reported by the Star-Ledger. Second, experts warn that merit pay will do more harm than good, again as reported by the Star-Ledger. If the public is against it and experts are warning it may cause major problems, why would both President Obama and Governor Christie be pushing for merit or performance based pay?

Let’s look at the problems of merit pay and then come back to that question.

1. It doesn’t work!

As reported in the Star-Ledger, September 30th, 2010, “In the first scientifically rigorous test of merit pay, Vanderbilt scholars offered between $5,000 and $15,000 to Nashville math teachers whose students scored higher than expected on a statewide exam.

But the incentive was a bust, they found. Except for some temporary gains during the three years studied, students did not progress any faster in classrooms where teachers were offered bonuses.”

2. It punishes teachers of “at-risk” students

“At-risk” students include  minority children, students with disabilities, poor children, and English language learners. These students have a variety of out-of-school factors that have a more significant influence on their test scores (see my next post for details on this) than in-school factors such as teacher performance. By punishing these teachers for their students low scores, it will be increasingly hard to find teachers to work with these students.

3. It promotes competition rather than collaboration.

Sharing ideas, student experiences and general support are essential to good teaching. Once teachers are pitted against each other, the main way teachers improve themselves, through cooperation, will be eliminated.

4. Raises the stakes on testing that doesn’t work.

It is well established in the education literature that high stakes testing is a poor measure of both student and teacher performance. If testing is flawed (again, see my next post for details) and Christie’s plan calls for over 50% of teacher evaluations to come from test scores, the evaluation process will be flawed.

5. Logistical Nightmare

We test in math and language arts.  But not every year.  And not at the beginning and end of the year to measure the progress a student has made in a specific class with a specific teacher. Even for the subjects we teach, testing that fairly measures a teachers influence is a logistical nightmare.  How do we handle the the subjects that we do not test in now?

Charter Schools

Again, before we start, let’s get a few things straight.  It is clear that Governor Christie foresees charters as playing a large role in his reform plan and he wants public money from school districts’ budgets to go to private companies to run the schools.   Again, although Christie is pushing charters, neither the public nor the experts are buying it.

I am not going to spend too much time on the problems with charter schools.  Gillian Russom did an excellent job in “The case against charter schools” in the International Socialist Review, Issue 71, May – June 2010.

The first two points are all you need to know, so I have summarized them below. But if you have any interest in charter schools, please take the time to read the whole article.

1. Charter schools don’t accept all students – Even when they use a lottery system as Asbury Park’s charter schools do, they still have ways of eliminating the toughest students (for example, attendance and late policies).

2. Charter schools don’t out perform our public schools – Many times they are even worse.