Teachers: Should you be paid based on performance?

maji wrote:

The same way I am assessed at my job - my boss determines whether I'm doing good work. It really is that simple. The boss can use whatever quantitative and qualititative criteria he or she wants.

Of course the boss usually answers to a bigger boss, so at some point if the overall company's performance is not there, they put someone new in charge.

Do that. Put the principal's balls on the line, and then give him the authority to put teachers' balls on the line. That's how it works at my job, why shouldn't it be the case where you work?

Maji, this - in principle (hardy har har) - would work. However, the public will never go for this. They want objective, measurable "returns" on their tax dollar investments. The public is well aware of cronyism in the private sector, and they want no part of it in their schools. They want a guarantee that their little Tylers and Tiffanys are getting the best money can buy.

Your flaw is found in this line of yours: "Overall company's performance." Ultimately, you have to define what that means.

I can only assume the previous poster who asked your for a specific definition is still waiting...

This is why the voucher system is being pushed. It allows the public to decide what "overall company's performance" means.

disagree completely wrote:

What are the reasonable standards?

it is simple.

1. don't be a dick to parents,

2. participate in PLC,

3. one year of instruction equals one year of growth, as determined by MAP Assessments for k-9 and state level achievement assessment for 10-12. 10-12 Secondary gets a bit tougher, which why I support cohort teaching/learning over differentiated instruction at the this level,

4. provide effective mentoring, measured by using district provided time to assist non-tenured teacher skill development.

5. proof of content mastery and continuing learning.

see?

Yes.

But teacher performance should not be measured only by student performance on standardized tests, which is what performance based pay generally seems to mean.

I don't know what you mean by "subjective" but deciding on quality of performance by a teacher should involve some element of judgment that takes into account the specifics of the teaching situation -- that is, performance by teachers should be judged like gymnastics, and not a track race.

Teachers do not perform better because of performance incentives, which do not kick in until the end of a year, anyway, and hence, the Gates Foundation, involved in an expensive project in Tampa, supports frequent observation and suggestions as a way of improving teaching. Evaluating teachers on the basis of student test scores is never going to work well, because many factors other than the teachers are involved and the scores are not particularly consistent. Indeed, the very tests themselves and their standards are inconsistent as Floridians have seen this year as the standards were raised, only about 30% would have passed and then the passing score was lowered to the point where the usual 80% pass rate was achieved.

Ghola wrote:

I don't care about your job. How should performance be evaluated in this specific job? You said it was simple, so tell us.

I already told you. Make people accountable with their jobs. Put a qualified professional in charge and let him/her figure it out. A good principal will take all of the context into consideration when doing teacher evaluations.

sure go ahead wrote:

Maji, this - in principle (hardy har har) - would work. However, the public will never go for this. They want objective, measurable "returns" on their tax dollar investments. The public is well aware of cronyism in the private sector, and they want no part of it in their schools. They want a guarantee that their little Tylers and Tiffanys are getting the best money can buy.

Your flaw is found in this line of yours: "Overall company's performance." Ultimately, you have to define what that means.

I can only assume the previous poster who asked your for a specific definition is still waiting...

It would work like this - the Board of Education says, for example, we want math scores for our 3rd graders to rise 5% within the next 5 years.

So that job is given to the principal to get 'er done. If he fails, he's out, and they get to bring in someone new to try.

What is so difficult to grasp about this?

maji wrote:

It would work like this - the Board of Education says, for example, we want math scores for our 3rd graders to rise 5% within the next 5 years.

So that job is given to the principal to get 'er done. If he fails, he's out, and they get to bring in someone new to try.

What is so difficult to grasp about this?

But so much is dependent on the child's upbringing and home situation. There's only so much a teacher/principal can do. That's why we need more funding in schools... wait, what?

This is an argument I've never understood. If so much of a student's success is dependent on things outside the schools control (ie. home life), then how does throwing money at the problem solve anything?

These are the kind of testing-centric goals that are ruining education in America. If you tie the entire teaching system's incentive structure to performance on standardized tests, guess what they're going to do: teach to the test.

asdfe wrote:

But so much is dependent on the child's upbringing and home situation. There's only so much a teacher/principal can do. That's why we need more funding in schools... wait, what?

If expectations are unreasonable it won't take long to figure that out. By the time the 2nd or 3rd guy fails to do what is asked, a light bulb should go on.

Or maybe it won't reach that level if the 1st principal can argue to keep his job on other merits.

nvjfur wrote:

But teacher performance should not be measured only by student performance on standardized tests, which is what performance based pay generally seems to mean.

generally, but not specifically. read my performance measurement model. not all the criteria is linked to testing, and MAP testing is growth assessment.

additionally, i've not seen one model that weights performance exclusively on testing. in fact, most point toward it being less than 50% of composite scoring.

Azaleas wrote:

These are the kind of testing-centric goals that are ruining education in America. If you tie the entire teaching system's incentive structure to performance on standardized tests, guess what they're going to do: teach to the test.

They won't just teach to the test, they will cheat the tests. Look at what has happened in Atlanta, among other places.

maji wrote:

It would work like this - the Board of Education says, for example, we want math scores for our 3rd graders to rise 5% within the next 5 years.

So that job is given to the principal to get 'er done. If he fails, he's out, and they get to bring in someone new to try.

What is so difficult to grasp about this?

Here is a great example of private sector thinking applied to public goods and why it will not work. If the schools worked like the private sector than the first thing the principal would do is expel the lowest 5% of the students. Zero reject means that such continuous improvement schemes always run up against limitations. (That doesn't mean higher standards don't matter or that leaders and leadership don't make a difference, they most assuredly do but there are limitations as well that the private sector does not have to deal with).

to make a great product, you select the very best. To make a great apple pie, a pie maker picks the best apples. You can measure the quality of the pie by tasting it. If the very best ingredients are used, the pie will be delicious.

If a mix of rotten apples, ripe apples, apples with worms, and green unripe apples are used to make the pie, it probaly won't taste very well.

An Apple maker can pic the very best ingredients. Teachers don't have that luxury. Teachers have to make the very best apple pie with the ingredients they are given. Teachers have to teach EVERY child and cannot say NO to anyone no matter how rotten that apple may be.

This is why it is so difficult to base pay on the performance of the students. Each student in the classroom has different needs. Some have learning disorders, others are being abused at home, other are overachieves, others are homeless, others are going through a parent's divorce and have so much stress that the last thing in their minds is school. A teacher's job is not as easy or simple as you might think. It is one of the most difficult and complex jobs out there and one of the least payed and appreciated. Teachers for the most part are doing a great job with the product they are given. It's not easy to make a great pie with rotten apples.

Not quite buddy wrote:

Lawyers win or lose cases and engineers either design well or they don't. Its much easier to measure their direct performance.

However, teachers would have to be indirectly measured. Where you would measure them by how their students do not what they directly do.

The problem as stated previously is that there are other factors that greatly influence the academic performance of students. Mostly which are socio-economically related.

Are you going for a world record in stupidity or what? Please don't say you are/were a teacher because you will really be reinforcing the unfortunate stereotype of teachers as morons.

Point by point:

Lawyers win or lose cases

Sorry, but lawyers' cases are 95% of the time won or lost by the facts of the case, not the cleverness of the lawyer. Otherwise there is no such thing as justice.

engineers either design well or they don't.

Engineers either design well or they don't? Seriously? OK, teachers either teach well or they don't.

However, teachers would have to be indirectly measured. Where you would measure them by how their students do not what they directly do.

Really? ALL professions have to be indirectly measured. They have to be measured on their results.

If you think they should be measured by what they directly do you are a complete fool. I don't give a rat's ass about what they do. I care about the outcomes they achieve. In the case of teachers this means students that improve under the teacher's tutelage.

The problem as stated previously is that there are other factors that greatly influence the academic performance of students. Mostly which are socio-economically related.

There are other factors? Really? Most of those socio-economic realities that you and your ilk so love to hide behind stay the same from year to year, especially as averaged out over 30 students and a few years. What a teacher can and absolutely should be measured against is the progress that their students make relative to where they were coming into the classroom.

Now before you come back on here please try to think just a little bit. Your last post did major damage to your team. Please make the next one at least a hundred times better thought out.

And thank you for playing.

Ghola wrote:

I don't care about your job. How should performance be evaluated in this specific job? You said it was simple, so tell us.

OK, dumb ass. Go ahead and tell me how an engineer's performance should be evaluated. A mathematician. A doctor. A secretary...

Since you cannot come up with a bullet proof methodology that covers all cases it stands to reason that it is simply impossible to reasonably measure performance for all of these professions (and thousands more).

See how that works?

PLEASE STOP BEING SO STUPID!

GREAT POST

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Azaleas wrote:

These are the kind of testing-centric goals that are ruining education in America. If you tie the entire teaching system's incentive structure to performance on standardized tests, guess what they're going to do: teach to the test.

They won't just teach to the test, they will cheat the tests. Look at what has happened in Atlanta, among other places.

This is clearly a possibility, but I don't think it requires us to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

When race to the top was announced a few years ago, I got all fired up about it...brought it up in academic senate...tried to convince my fellow teachers that if we didn't start thinking of innovative ways to assess ourselves, that the state was going to come and apply some sort of one size fits all measure of performance.

I created a rubric to rate teachers based on multiple measures, among which were the California Standards Test. I think that any effective measure of a teachers performance MUST include a measure of his students' performances.

However, rather than using straight scores on the test, I proposed measuring how students did in my classes vs. those of another teacher. Year after year, I've been depressed when I see the results of my students' test scores in my lower level classes. I teach Earth Science, which in our school is the science class into which all of our academically disinclined students are funneled. Of course my kids scores are going to be low. For the most part, they don't care about school very much.

However, about 4 years ago, I had the chance to see a statistical analysis of my Earth Science kids' scores vs. the test scores they received in all their other classes. What I saw was this; my kids scored better in Earth Science than they did in all of their other subjects. By this measure, I was getting more out of these kids than any of their other teachers. These kids may have not been that smart nor that motivated, but for me, they were better than they were for anyone else. So, I wrote this measure into my rubric.

I also included things like: showing up on time in the morning (proposed putting a time clock in the office), showing up for your adjunct duties (because as a track coach I'm always getting stood up by the teachers assigned to duty), extra curricular clubs and sports, tutoring, a parent survey, and a student survey (both annonymous).

To make a long story short, CA decided to opt out of "Race to the Top" and my rubric sits in storage on my hard drive.

I hope you are joking. Please say you are joking. That's about the lamest response I have ever heard on here.

Oh, so because a school district sets a target for improvement and holds a principal accountable it automatically follows that expulsions become the norm? And this is not readily countered?

Good god, Mr. Obvious, I am ashamed to share a name with you!