Yet another study showing no results from teacher merit pay

Yet another study showing no results from teacher merit pay: Roland Fryer at http://www.nber.org/papers/w16850

If anything, teacher incentives may decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools.

Third paper showing no gains in NYC; at least fifth or sixth study overall.  

And yet the US Govt. under Duncan seems intent on throwing away millions in our tax payer funds on this nonsense.

Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from New York City Public Schools

Roland G. Fryer NBER Working Paper No. 16850 Issued in March 2011 NBER Program(s):   ED   LS Financial incentives for teachers to increase student performance is an increasingly popular education policy around the world. This paper describes a school-based randomized trial in over two-hundred New York City public schools designed to better understand the impact of teacher incentives on student achievement. I find no evidence that teacher incentives increase student performance, attendance, or graduation, nor do I find any evidence that the incentives change student or teacher behavior. If anything, teacher incentives may decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools. The paper concludes with a speculative discussion of theories that may explain these stark results.

Sol Stern Calls for End of Cash Bonuses Based on Test Scores to Reduce Layoffs

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon0517ss.html

Sol Stern

A Modest Budget Proposal

Kill the city’s counterproductive bonus scheme for teachers and principals.

17 May 2010

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew claim to be seeking ways to minimize the number of teachers—now expected to be close to 6,000—laid off for the next school year. Assuming that Bloomberg and Mulgrew are serious, I have a modest proposal for them to consider. They should agree to suspend the education department’s program of cash bonuses for teachers and principals based largely on improvements in students’ test scores. I estimate that the $37 million spent last year on three separate bonus schemes could be used next year to cover the salaries and benefits of 600 first- and second-year teachers, or about 10 percent of the total number of projected layoffs.

Even at the best of times, rewarding educators with payments for raising students’ scores on standardized tests can produce damaging side effects in the classroom. Testing experts like Harvard’s Daniel Koretz warn that such cash incentives create pressure on teachers to devote an inordinate amount of time and effort to teaching test-taking skills and lead to a narrowing of the curriculum. The payments are also incentives for outright cheating by adults working in the schools. “When test scores become the goal of the teaching process,” said the great American social scientist Donald Campbell, “they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways.”

Test corruption has become even more of a problem in New York of late. The state’s top two education officials, Board of Regents chancellor Merryl Tisch and education department commissioner David Steiner, recently concluded that the annual math and English tests for grades three through eight had become unreliable measures of children’s real academic achievement. They are trying to restructure the state’s assessments and recently ordered a study by Koretz to measure the extent of score inflation on the tests given in the past several years.

That development in Albany argues strongly for a moratorium on the city’s bonus program—at least until some confidence is restored in the annual state tests on which the payments are largely based. Moreover, continuing this costly program during the city’s dire budget crisis would be irresponsible. The most troubling aspect of the program on the financial side is the bonuses of up to $25,000 handed out to principals whose schools have shown improvement on the corrupted state tests and who will soon retire. Not only does this waste precious education dollars during one school year; the city is also obligated, because the bonuses are fully pensionable, to continue paying for that one-year improvement in test scores for the next 20 to 30 years. The Bloomberg administration claims that it is trying to rein in the city’s out-of-control pension costs—yet under the bonus system, inflated test scores lead to inflated pensions.

You might think it would be a no-brainer for the Department of Education, the principals’ union, and the teachers’ union to shelve the bonus payments for at least the next school year. Unfortunately, that’s not what the three parties are considering, as I discovered after asking each of them for a response to my moratorium proposal.

Joel Klein, New York City’s schools chancellor, told me that he didn’t think the program’s costs would be as high next year because “we expect state tests to be more difficult in the future.” But he also insisted that “the projected cost of the bonuses to teachers at schools that help students achieve at high levels is a smart investment.” Principals’ union leader Ernest Logan echoed that sentiment: “There’s no constructive reason to turn back the clock. Performance differentials and bonuses are at the forefront of every education reformer’s agenda today.” And Michael Mulgrew’s press secretary, Richard Riley, told me that while former UFT president Randi Weingarten had proposed in 2008 that the DOE drop the bonus program, Mulgrew “hasn’t made a statement yet” about it. Mulgrew’s equivocation is particularly puzzling, since he has now said publicly that the city’s test scores are not to be believed.

Logan accurately describes the city’s bonus program as being “at the forefront” of the education-reform agenda. Unfortunately, the program also shows some of the flaws in that reform agenda. In New York City, the mere idea of school reform seems to be trumping common sense in determining the best practices in schools and classrooms.

Sol Stern is a contributing editor of City Journal and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Urgent: Is your school on this list?

Please distribute widely!

The deadline for voting for the merit pay program in schools is this Thursday, November 6th.

Paying teachers to raise test scores is damaging to our kids, our schools and our entire educational system!

Below is a letter you can use to create conversation around the issue of merit pay. Below the letter is the list of schools that are voting this week. If you know ANYONE at any of these schools please forward this email to them.


Dear Colleagues,
The offer to have our school participate in the merit pay pilot program was thrown at our school community without giving us enough time to carefully consider the consequences. Here are some thoughts to consider before making this important decision.

Some Things to Consider Regarding Merit Pay:
- The proposed plan implies that the most reliable measure of a school’s success are the student’s test scores.

- By accepting this plan we are encouraging the use of high stakes testing and encouraging teachers to teach to the test.
(You get money only if students perform well on a test!)

- This plan diverts our attention from the real questions we should be asking our union and our city government: why isn’t this money going to reduce class size, increase teacher salaries in general, and increase arts and other enrichment programs.

- This plan creates a situation where the principal, someone the principal designates and two UFT members sit behind closed doors and decide how the money will be divided. This has the potential for some inequitable decisions as well as for creating a divisive atmosphere in our school.

- Merit pay implies that the problem in our schools is that teachers are not working hard enough. “If only those teachers would try a little harder, our students would succeed”. It does not address any of the larger issues that we know impact our students’ success.

- By accepting merit pay, we are sending the message that we agree with the analysis that teachers are the problem.

- We have to meet 100% of the goal to get the money.(We still do not know how the goals will be set, or who will set them). If we vote for this plan, and only reach 99% of our goal, we only get 50% of the money ($1500).

- If we vote for this plan, and reach 74% of our goal, we get nothing.

-With all of the issues to consider and unanswered questions, why are we being rushed to make such a hasty decision.

- Finally, what we do in our school will impact what happens in New York City, and what happens in New York sets a precedent for the nation. We have a responsibility to carefully weigh this decision.

P.S. 015 Roberto Clemente (Manhattan)

P.S. 188 The Island School (Manhattan)

47 The American Sign Language and English Dual L (Manhattan)

Coalition School for Social Change (Manhattan)

Unity Center for Urban Technologies (Manhattan)

J.H.S. M044 William J. O'shea (Manhattan)

M.S. 256 Academic & Athletic Excellence (Manhattan)

P.S. 007 Samuel Stern (Manhattan)

J.H.S. M045 John S. Roberts (Manhattan)

P.S. 050 Vito Marcantonio (Manhattan)

P.S. 096 Joseph Lanzetta (Manhattan)

Tito Puente Education Complex (Manhattan)

P.S. 146 Ann M. Short (Manhattan)

P.S. 155 William Paca (Manhattan)

The Bilingual Bicultural School (Manhattan)

Park East High School (Manhattan)

Central Park East High School (Manhattan)

Academy of Environmental Science Secondary High Sc (Manhattan)

Heritage School, The (Manhattan)

P.S. 046 Arthur Tappan (Manhattan)

P.S. 154 Harriet Tubman (Manhattan)

P.S. 161 Pedro Albizu Campos (Manhattan)

P.S. 194 Countee Cullen (Manhattan)

Bread & Roses Integrated Arts High School (Manhattan)

Duke Ellington (Manhattan)

P.S. 005 Ellen Lurie (Manhattan)

P.S. 018 Park Terrace (Manhattan)

P.S. 028 Wright Brothers (Manhattan)

P.S. 048 P.O. Michael J. Buczek (Manhattan)

P.S. 098 Shorac Kappock (Manhattan)

P.S. 115 Alexander Humboldt (Manhattan)

P.S. 128 Audubon (Manhattan)

Juan Pablo Duarte (Manhattan)

P.S. 153 Adam Clayton Powell (Manhattan)

P.S. 173 (Manhattan)

21st Century Academy (Manhattan)

P.S./I.S. 278 (Manhattan)

City College Academy of the Arts (Manhattan)

M.S. 319 - Maria Teresa (Manhattan)

M.S. 321 - Minerva (Manhattan)

M.S. 324 - Patria (Manhattan)

High School for International Business and Finance (Manhattan)

P.S. 001 Courtlandt School (Bronx)

P.S./M.S. 029 Melrose School (Bronx)

P.S. 156 Benjamin Banneker (Bronx)

P.S. 161 Ponce De Leon (Bronx)

P.S. 179 (Bronx)

M.S. 203 (Bronx)

P.S. 220 Mott Haven Village School (Bronx)

South Bronx Academy for Applied Media (Bronx)

Academy of Public Relations (Bronx)

Academy of Applied Mathematics and Technology (Bronx)

Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School (Bronx)

Samuel Gompers Career and Technical Education High (Bronx)

P.S. 062 Inocensio Casanova (Bronx)

P.S. 093 Albert G. Oliver (Bronx)

James M. Kiernan (Bronx)

P.S. 146 Edward Collins (Bronx)

M.S. X201 (Bronx)

Gateway School for Environmental Research and Tech (Bronx)

Millennium Art Academy (Bronx)

New School #2 @ P.S. 60 (Bronx)

The School for Inquiry and Social Justice (Bronx)

Banana Kelly High School (Bronx)

School for Community Research and Learning (Bronx)

BRONX ACADEMY HIGH SCHOOL (Bronx)

Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers (Bronx)

P.S. 053 Basheer Quisim (Bronx)

P.S. 055 Benjamin Franklin (Bronx)

P.S. 058 (Bronx)

P.S. 073 Bronx (Bronx)

P.S. 090 George Meany (Bronx)

P.S. 109 Sedgwick (Bronx)

P.S. 126 Dr Marjorie H Dunbar (Bronx)

P.S. 132 Garret A. Morgan (Bronx)

P.S. 230 Dr Roland N. Patterson (Bronx)

I.S. 232 (Bronx)

P.S. 236 Langston Hughes (Bronx)

Urban Science Academy (Bronx)

New Millennium Business Academy Middle School (Bronx)

I.S. 339 (Bronx)

Ryer Avenue Elementary School (Bronx)

P.S. 032 Belmont (Bronx)

P.S. 046 Edgar Allan Poe (Bronx)

P.S. / I.S. 54 (Bronx)

J.H.S. 080 The Mosholu Parkway (Bronx)

P.S. 085 Great Expectations (Bronx)

P.S. 159 Luis Munoz Marin Biling (Bronx)

P.S. 246 Poe Center (Bronx)

P.S. 306 (Bronx)

Bronx Dance Academy School (Bronx)

P.S. 310 Marble Hill (Bronx)

P.S. 315 Lab School (Bronx)

The Bronx School of Science Inquiry and Investigat (Bronx)

M.S. 390 (Bronx)

M.S. 391 (Bronx)

M.S. 399 (Bronx)

Belmont Preparatory High School (Bronx)

P.S. 041 Gun Hill Road (Bronx)

P.S. 068 Bronx (Bronx)

P.S. 112 Bronxwood (Bronx)

J.H.S. 142 John Philip Sousa (Bronx)

J.H.S. 144 Michelangelo (Bronx)

Bronx Academy of Health Careers (Bronx)

Christopher Columbus High School (Bronx)

P.S. 044 David C. Farragut (Bronx)

P.S. 057 Crescent (Bronx)

P.S. 061 Francisco Oller (Bronx)

P.S. 066 School of Higher Expectations (Bronx)

P.S. 092 Bronx (Bronx)

J.H.S. 098 Herman Ridder (Bronx)

P.S. 150 Charles James Fox (Bronx)

PS 195 (Bronx)

P.S. 211 (Bronx)

Business School for Entrepreneurial Studies (Bronx)

East Bronx Academy for the Future (Bronx)

Fannie Lou Hamer Middle School (Bronx)

Morris Academy for Collaborative Studies (Bronx)

The School of Science and Applied Learning (Bronx)

BRONX REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL (Bronx)

High School for Violin and Dance (Bronx)

High School of World Cultures (Bronx)

Bronx Coalition Community High School (Bronx)

Wings Academy (Bronx)

Monroe Academy for Business/Law (Bronx)

Monroe Academy for Visual Arts & Design (Bronx)

P.S. 093 William H. Prescott (Brooklyn)

Dr. Susan. S. McKinney Secondary School of the Art (Brooklyn)

P.S. 270 Johann DeKalb (Brooklyn)

Academy of Business and Community Development (Brooklyn)

ACORN Community High School (Brooklyn)

M.S. 571 (Brooklyn)

P.S. 120 Carlos Tapia (Brooklyn)

P.S. 196 Ten Eyck (Brooklyn)

P.S. 297 Abraham Stockton (Brooklyn)

Automotive High School (Brooklyn)

The Bergen (Brooklyn)

P.S. 015 Patrick F. Daly (Brooklyn)

I.S. 136 Charles O. Dewey (Brooklyn)

P.S. 172 Beacon School of Excellence (Brooklyn)

New Horizons School (Brooklyn)

Secondary School for Journalism (Brooklyn)

Metropolitan Corporate Academy High School (Brooklyn)

P.S. 025 Eubie Blake School (Brooklyn)

P.S. 028 The Warren (Brooklyn)

Whitelaw Reid (Brooklyn)

P.S. 243 Weeksville (Brooklyn)

P.S. 262 El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Brooklyn)

M.S. 267 Math, Science & Technology (Brooklyn)

P.S. 304 Casimir Pulaski (Brooklyn)

P.S. 309 George E. Wibecan (Brooklyn)

P.S. 335 Granville T. Woods (Brooklyn)

Boys and Girls High School (Brooklyn)

P.S. 012 (Brooklyn)

Adrian Hegeman (Brooklyn)

P.S. 167 The Parkway (Brooklyn)

P.S. 191 Paul Robeson (Brooklyn)

I.S. 246 Walt Whitman (Brooklyn)

M.S. K394 (Brooklyn)

Stanley Eugene Clark (Brooklyn)

School for Human Rights, The (Brooklyn)

Paul Robeson High School (Brooklyn)

I.S. 068 Isaac Bildersee (Brooklyn)

Canarsie High School (Brooklyn)

P.S. 072 Annette P Goldman (Brooklyn)

P.S. 108 Sal Abbracciamento (Brooklyn)

P.S. 149 Danny Kaye (Brooklyn)

P.S. 158 Warwick (Brooklyn)

P.S. 213 New Lots (Brooklyn)

J.H.S. 302 Rafael Cordero (Brooklyn)

W. H. Maxwell Career and Technical Education High (Brooklyn)

P.S. 109 (Brooklyn)

P.S. K315 (Brooklyn)

P.S. 041 Francis White (Brooklyn)

Rachel Jean Mitchell (Brooklyn)

P.S. 155 Nicholas Herkimer (Brooklyn)

P.S. 156 Waverly (Brooklyn)

P.S. 184 Newport (Brooklyn)

P.S. 298 Dr. Betty Shabazz (Brooklyn)

Rose B. English (Brooklyn)

Newtown High School (Queens)

R. Vernam (Queens)

I.S. 053 Brian Piccolo (Queens)

P.S. 197 The Ocean School (Queens)

P.S. 253 (Queens)

August Martin High School (Queens)

Samuel Huntington (Queens)

P.S. 034 John Harvard (Queens)

Humanities & Arts Magnet High School (Queens)

P.S. 092 Harry T. Stewart Sr. (Queens)

P.S. 111 Jacob Blackwell (Queens)

P.S. 018 John G. Whittier (Staten Island)

P.S. 020 Port Richmond (Staten Island)

Horace Greene (Brooklyn)

P.S. 075 Mayda Cortiella (Brooklyn)

P.S. 086 The Irvington (Brooklyn)

P.S. 106 Edward Everett Hale (Brooklyn)

P.S. 123 Suydam (Brooklyn)

P.S. 151 Lyndon B. Johnson (Brooklyn)

J.H.S. 291 Roland Hayes (Brooklyn)

I.S. 347 School of Humanities (Brooklyn)

I.S. 349 Math, Science & Tech. (Brooklyn)

Bushwick School for Social Justice (Brooklyn)

Bushwick Leaders High School for Academic Excellen (Brooklyn)

P.S. K077 (Brooklyn)

D.C. Teachers Divided on Merit Pay Plan

http://labornotes.org/node/1904

- Paul Abowd

saveourschools

Washington, D.C.'s plan for its struggling school system first closed 23
schools. Now the district wants to abolish teachers' job security and bring
in a lucrative two-tier merit pay scheme. Teachers say it could lead to mass
firings and favoritism. Photo: Darrow Montgomery

The Washington Teachers Union is on a collision course with D.C. schools
chief Michelle Rhee over her plan to kill job security for teachers in
exchange for merit pay-up to $20,000 a year in bonuses-and higher salaries.

D.C. is home to the second-highest number of charter schools in the country
and a slowly declining school-age population. Mayor Adrian Fenty, who took
control of the school system last year, believes the plan will get rid of
bad teachers, motivate the rest, up student achievement, and raise the
profile of a district that has lost 22,000 students and 1,500 teachers in 10
years.

But merit pay has been taboo in teachers unions because it pits teachers
against each other, and because awards are often tied to students' scores on
the dreaded standardized tests. Teachers say the tests, loved by
administrators looking for quick ways to measure student progress, are not
only an unreliable gauge of learning but also a route to deadly dull
classrooms.

In many districts, teachers already receive performance pay for attaining
board certification, mentoring, or teaching in low-performing schools. Since
the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind law, however, standardized
tests have become the key measure of teacher performance and student
achievement.

During 10 months of negotiations, Rhee's proposals have created fault lines
both within the union leadership and among its members. "This will attract
teachers for the wrong reason," said a veteran teacher and member of the WTU
executive board. "Are they going to come for the pay or to make a difference
for students?"

"I don't consider this merit pay, because everyone would get a base pay
raise," said President George Parker. "This is incentive pay, which is a
bonus for performance."

When contract talks stalled in mid-July, Parker was criticized for convening
meetings where the chancellor pitched her two-tier scheme to the local's
4,200 teachers.

SEEING GREEN

Rhee is proposing that current teachers choose one of two tracks, Red or
Green. Both include $5,000 "transition" stipends for two years, and better
benefits.

Red track teachers would get a 31 percent raise over five years. Green
teachers would get a smaller raise, but they'd be eligible for merit pay-as
much as $20,000 a year if they met performance standards.

Many teachers left the meetings seeing green. "I'm looking at a 73 percent
raise in one year," said first-grade teacher Steve Oberly. "If we did this
program for five years, I would have a retirement nest egg."

To get on the merit-based pay plan, Oberly, a ten-year veteran, would
undergo a year of probation, after which he could be dismissed for
under-performance. Though fired teachers can appeal to an elected body of
teachers and administrators, the school principal has the final say.
Teachers say favoritism would rule the day.

"This could lead to mass terminations," said Candi Peterson, a WTU trustee
and building representative. "And they could get rid of a position, when
they really want to get rid of a person."

All new teachers would join the Green tier as at-will, probationary
employees for four years. Over that period, they would see a 20 percent
raise and up their total salary from $50,000 to $75,000-if they survived.

Teachers who chose the Red program and got fired would receive a salaried
one-year leave or, for teachers with 20 years' experience, an early
retirement package. Green teachers would get nothing.

The union would be giving up job security across the board, as both plans do
away with seniority for the hiring, firing, or placement of teachers. "There
is no such thing as a safe tier," said Peterson.

WTU's parent union, the American Federation of Teachers, recently elected
Randi Weingarten to the union's top spot. As head of the New York City
teachers union, Weingarten negotiated merit pay last fall, and her elevation
signals AFT's openness to such pay plans.

As early as 2002, the AFT endorsed what it calls "professional
compensation," but highlighted the pitfalls: "questionable or
difficult-to-understand assessment procedures" and "teacher morale problems
stemming from the creation of unfair competition."

Opponents say D.C.'s merit plan contains the same dangers.

"They're going to ask teachers to vote on this plan before determining how
we're going to be evaluated for performance pay," Peterson said.

Solvency has been the biggest issue for merit schemes. "Numerous plans have
begun in the last 40 years but they flat run out of money," said Rob Weil,
of AFT's Educational Issues Department. "They're often programs that we
love, but when they require new money, they lose their luster."

Rhee claims her pay plan has private backing from the Gates Foundation,
among others, but only for five years. When this money runs out, she
promises to free up resources by streamlining bureaucracy and ending the
outsourcing of special education.

Her 20-year early-retirement plan, however, relies on a squeezed district
budget. The city already rejected proposals for a 25-year plan last year.

LEADERSHIP SPLITS

The contract talks have exacerbated the rift between Parker and WTU's Vice
President, Nathan Saunders. After Parker barred him from speaking on behalf
of the union, Saunders sued Parker, members of the executive board, and
Rhee, charging them with conspiracy.

Saunders' litigious streak has served the union well. A 2002 suit he filed
uncovered a $5 million embezzlement scandal that sent then-WTU president
Barbara Bullock to jail for nine years.

Now, Saunders and others are filing an unfair labor practice charge against
Parker and Rhee after revelations that two nonprofits close to Rhee hired
several teachers for $1,000 a week to lobby their colleagues to accept merit
pay.

Despite internal divisions, the WTU is opposing any proposal that attacks
tenure, a legal right shared by all D.C. employees. Tenure rights ensure due
process and recognition of years of service in staffing decisions.

Meanwhile, Rhee has closed 23 schools in the last year, leaving 600 teachers
awaiting re-assignment just weeks before school begins. According to
Peterson, 78 instructors were fired in June. "Even though we have due
process under the old contract, we've had people illegally terminated," she
said. "Imagine what it would be like with a weaker contract."

New teachers can't be hired, nor can negotiations move forward, until
teachers are placed. Rhee's push for a mid-July vote before the AFT national
convention fizzled, heightening scrutiny of her proposals, and making an
agreement unlikely before school begins in late August.

Teacher Bonus Pay May Be Expanded Amid a Tight Budget

Weingarten Favored Initial Plan, Opposes 20% Boost Being Considered

By ELIZABETH GREEN, Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 9, 2008

The experiment in giving teachers cash bonuses if their students score well on tests is set to be expanded in the fall — and for the first time it would be financed by the taxpayer dollar.

The expansion is pending the finalization of the Department of Education's budget, which is being scrutinized by the City Council for changes.

If approved, the plan would expand by 20% the bonus-pay program that Mayor Bloomberg and the teachers union announced last year. It would also transfer the costs of the program, now funded by private foundations, to the public bill.

The expansion had been scheduled when the program was first announced, on the condition that funds were available.

The decision to move forward comes as the department is proposing that schools cut their budgets by at least 1.4% next year — and in some cases by as much as 6%, or nearly $1 million, if a proposed deal with the state does not come through.

The expansion would cost taxpayers $25 million and would expand the program to include 270 schools from 230 this school year, a Department of Education spokeswoman, Debra Wexler, said.

The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, was a partner to the city in conceiving the program last year. Yesterday, she said that, given the proposed budget cuts, the bonus-pay program falls into the category of an extra that should not be expanded if it means less money will go to core services.

"I like this program. I wanted it. I like it," Ms. Weingarten said. "But not at the expense of cutting schools."

Under the city's proposal, a large portion of the funds, $20 million, would be paid for with state money granted through the Contracts for Excellence program, which sets aside a certain pot of funds to be targeted only to a specific set of programs at the city's neediest schools.

Student poverty levels determined which schools were eligible to join the pilot bonus-pay program this school year. Teaching staffs could then opt to join the program or opt out. About 90% of eligible schools participated this year.

Ms. Wexler said the program was a clear example of one of the Contracts for Excellence categories: improving teacher performance.

Ms. Weingarten disputed that, saying the bonus program was meant to encourage collaboration between teachers and administrators, not to improve teacher quality.

This year's bonus pay has not yet been disbursed, because test scores have not yet been released publicly.

If a school is shown to have made sufficient progress on those tests, it will receive a lump sum determined by multiplying the total number of union members at a school by $3,000. The pot could be split evenly between every UFT member, or committees could dole it out more creatively.

Schools use four-person "compensation committees" that include two administrators and two UFT members to make that decision.

Chancellor Joel Klein last year voiced hope that the committees would choose to draft the size of the bonuses according to the size of test-score gains made by each teacher's students.

In practice, such arrangements are extremely difficult to hash out, a teacher at one eligible elementary school, the New Lots School in East New York, said.

The teacher, Gregory Schmidt, said one problem is that only three of the school's six grades are tested by the state, and many other UFT members do not see their performance judged by student tests: the art teacher, the gym teacher, and people who work in the main office, for instance.

"You don't want to come back next fall and be sitting in the teachers' lounge with somebody who got less money than you did because of an arrangement you agreed to," Mr. Schmidt said. "If the whole thing becomes a battle amongst teachers for money, it would be crippling for school morale."

When the program was announced, school and union officials promised they would launch an outside evaluation to study it carefully.

Ms. Wexler said the city is now working with the union to find an evaluator.
Ms. Weingarten said she had been asking the department to take such a step for months, calling its progress "slow as molasses."

http://www.nysun.com/new-york/bonus-pay-for-teachers-may-be-expanded-amid/79578/

Teacher Performance pay Unpopular in Florida

St Petersburg (FL) Times

Merit pay plan's unintended lesson
A Times Editorial
Published March 13, 2008

In its first year, a teacher performance pay plan has proved so unpopular
that 60 of Florida's 67 school districts have walked away from the
$147.5-million pot of money. But lawmakers who are eager to blame reluctant
teacher unions must now confront a disturbing trend at the district they
hold up as a model. Hillsborough, the largest district to enact merit pay,
has discovered that teachers in the most affluent schools are the ones
benefitting the most.

That result, documented by Times reporter Letitia Stein, is precisely what
school officials around the state had feared. It also works at cross
purposes with the state's goal of putting the best teachers at the schools
with the greatest needs, and lawmakers cannot ignore it.

Hillsborough school officials have worked earnestly on merit pay and deserve
credit for their willingness to confront the daunting challenges. Under the
state's Merit Award Program, at least 60 percent of a teacher's evaluation
must be based on how students perform on standardized tests. That test-heavy
formula has skewed the playing field.

As Stein reported, three-fourths of the roughly 5,000 teachers who received
$2,100 bonuses worked at the county's most affluent campuses. Only 3 percent
worked in the high-poverty schools. As if to underscore the disconnect
between merit pay and other performance measures, only half of district's
Teacher of the Year finalists received the bonus.

These results cannot be encouraging to other districts that have stayed on
the sidelines. Many districts with concerns about disparate impacts tried to
build protections into their plans but were rejected by the state Department
of Education. Pinellas had seven different plans turned down before it threw
in the towel. St. Lucie offered a "complexity factor" that DOE rejected,
presumably, for being too complex.

The state's formula for assessing teachers is so rigid that is not clear
whether DOE will allow Hillsborough to amend its plan so that teachers at
low-achieving, high-poverty schools have a better chance at receiving the
bonus.

These are the jarring contradictions that can result when teacher pay gets
caught up in political agendas. Leave aside that Florida teachers are paid,
on average, $5,700 below the national average. The state now has three
different legislatively created bonus plans, for national certification and
state-assigned school grades and "merit," that are based on three different
sets of standards. Merit Award is the fourth different merit pay plan in the
past six years.

The biggest obstacle to performance pay in Florida schools is not the
unions. It's the hamhanded attempts by lawmakers and DOE to dictate how
teachers must be judged. The Hillsborough experience suggests that the
performance-pay law is, at best, a work in progress. Unless lawmakers are
willing to give the districts more discretion, they are not likely to see
the results they want. More troubling, they could end up rewarding
hard-working teachers for leaving the kind of schools where they are needed
most.

Quinn Floats Bonus Pay For Teachers

By BENJAMIN SARLIN Special to the Sun February 12, 2008 Middle-school teachers would receive bonus pay for working in low-performing schools under a proposal the City Council speaker is expected to announce today at her annual State of the City address. Under the proposal, teachers who work in certain schools would receive between $5,000 and $10,000 a year. The pilot schools would be drawn from a list of 51 low-performing middle schools identified by a task force Speaker Christine Quinn created last year. "Look — we have to admit that some schools are harder to teach in than others," Ms. Quinn will say, according to excerpts of the speech released by her staff. "And if we are going to convince our best teachers to go there or stay there we have to be willing to experiment with different approaches to compensating them." According to the speech, Ms. Quinn, a likely mayoral candidate in 2009, will push to expand the program citywide should the results prove satisfactory. Mayor Bloomberg has made various forms of incentive pay, such as bonuses for teachers whose students perform well, a central aspect of his education policy. Some principals currently receive bonuses for taking over low-performing schools. Mr. Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers launched an incentives program, Lead Teacher, providing certain teachers who work in troubled schools with bonuses of as much as $10,000. The program is scheduled to lose its central funding in June as part of the $500 million in proposed education cuts in the mayor's preliminary budget. Ms. Quinn's proposal drew praise yesterday from a parents group, the Coalition for Educational Justice, which has advocated for incentive pay to attract qualified teachers. "We're excited they're thinking about putting a plan into action," a parent leader for the group, Zakiyah Ansari, said yesterday. "Unfortunately many of our schools, especially the ones they're talking about, are often plagued with unqualified teachers who don't have proper mentoring and are overloaded with large class sizes." The Daily News reported yesterday that an outside consultant, Dan Gerstein, had been paid $12,000 in public funds to write the speech, drawing criticism from some government watchdogs as an inappropriate use of taxpayer money. Ms. Quinn yesterday attended a congressional hearing on the subprime mortgage crisis at City Hall, where she warned that large numbers of city residents in parts of Brooklyn and Queens were facing foreclosure due to subprime loans. "We could have a ripple effect that could erode entire neighborhoods," she said.

DOE's Secret Plan for Merit Pay...Without the Pay!

by Marjorie Stamberg, GED Plus, D79

Naturally they had to do it in secret.

Today's front-page New York Times article has caused quite a sensation. It may not have swept the nation, but it sure shook up the world of education in New York.

The Times revealed that that the DOE has a program in which 2,500 teacher in 140 schools across the city are being evaluated on the basis of their students' test scores.

Did you know about this? Of course not. Becaue they've kept it under wraps.

"The move is so contentious that principals in some of the 140 schools participating have not told their teachers that they are being scrutinized based on student performance and improvement."

There are actually 280 schools participating in the program. In 140 schools, teachers are being measured on how many students in their classes meet basic progress goals. In a second group of 140 schools, principals are "subjectively" evaluating teachers, to see how the results match up!

This is really fishy--it flunks the smell test. It proves what we have been saying all along, that the "school-wide bonus pay" is just a wedge to open the way for Mayor Bloomberg calls "performance pay." If these programs go through, it will be a mortal blow to the union and put every teacher at the mercy of the principal or higher-up.

The Time's article saw the connection of these secret program to school "bonus pay" as well. "A new bonus program for teachers and principals, as well as the letter grading system for schools unveiled last fall are all linked to improvement in schools."

The Times said that Randi Weingarten and the UFT knew about this secret program for months and said nothing to the teachers! In a quote, Randi said she could not reveal it because she was told "confidentially" by the DOE and did not know which specific schools were involved. She said she "had grave reservations about the project and would fight if the city tried to use the information for tenure or formal evaluations or even publicized it." (So now it's public--I wonder what she's going to do?)

It's even more outrageous: The secret program is being administered by Chris Cerf, who is deputy schools chancellor. Cerf was hired by the DOE last year. He used to be head of the Edison Schools, the largest for-profit outfit in the country. The Edison schools made an attempt to open up shop in NYC a few years ago, but was defeated by a campaign of the UFT and concerned parents. So Bloomberg and Klein hired Cerf to be deputy chancellor. It's called privatization from within.

So, this brings us to the vote underway in GED Plus on "school wide bonus pay." We are being told by the D79 UFT reps that this is free money, and "why turn down $3,000 for work you would do anyway?"

We have argued that this money ain't free, it's a bribe, it's divisive and it blames teachers for the dire situation of students in NYC. We said, "It's letting the camel's nose in the tent." Well, it's hard to picture Joel Klein as a camel, but more than the nose is now in the tent!

This just underscores how important it is to vote down bonus pay.

But we should all ask our UFT reps what they knew about this secret plan and when they knew it.

As members of the UFT executive board, and as district UFT reps, were they informed about the existance of this program before today? Did they know about it when they were asking us to be part of this agenda? Or did Randi keep it from them as well?

They can't duck this one.

Teachers throughout the system, in every single school, should ask the principals of their schools whether they are part of it and have been secretly evaluated.

Now Randi has a statement out (on the UFT website), calling the secret program misguided and claiming it is in contradiction with the "committment...to collaboration and working together.. in the School Wide Bonus Program." No, there's no contradiction--this is all part of the same program and the UFT leadership has acted as enablers.

Hopefully, there is so much outrage now that we, the 130,000 members of the UFT, can stop this privatizing, corporatizing anti-student union-busting now.

On Merit Pay from The Chief

Most Teachers Who Qualify Opt For Merit Pay;
14% Vote No, Saying Program's Intent Is Misguided

By MEREDITH KOLODNER
Dec. 28, 2007

http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2007/1228/News/001.html

About 86 percent of United Federation of Teachers members in roughly 240 schools voted in favor of a school-wide merit-based bonus program that could net members an average of $3,000 each.

RANDI WEINGARTEN: Makes cooperation pay.

At least 55 percent of the entire UFT membership in each school had to approve the pilot program. Members who didn't cast ballots were counted as "no" votes and Principals needed to approve participation. A total of 33 schools decided not to participate.

Test Scores Key Factor

Schools will be awarded the bonuses if they meet the goals outlined in the progress reports issued last month, which based about 85 percent of their evaluation on standardized test scores.

UFT members at McKinney Secondary School of the Arts voted 46 to 4 in favor of participating in the program. "If Teachers are working in a collaborative environment together with parents and students and achieving results," said Jerrick Rutherford, the McKinney chapter leader, "then we support the principle of recognizing that effort."

Mr. Rutherford emphasized that the fact that the program was a joint effort by the Department of Education and the UFT was a significant factor in the school's approval. Before the vote, he met with the Principal to discuss the school's participation, and they jointly presented it to the entire staff. He then met separately with UFT members to answer questions and distributed a fact sheet on the pilot program.

School compensation committees, comprised of two elected UFT members, the Principal and a designee, have been created to determine how the bonuses are awarded. The committee could decide to reward only the Teachers they believe have excelled, or distribute the bonuses evenly among all UFT members. Decisions must be made by consensus or the school forfeits the money.

The schools were chosen randomly from a pool of high-needs, low-performing schools, based on incoming test scores for middle and high schools, and student demographics, poverty level and the number of English Language Learners and Special Education students in elementary schools.

'Insult' to Brandeis

At Brandeis High School, 46 UFT members voted in favor, 41 voted against and about 100 members did not vote, so the measure was defeated. The chapter leader had distributed flyers that encouraged members to vote yes and warned them that failing to cast a ballot would contribute to the no-vote count.

"I kind of took it kind of as an insult," said Kerry Trainor, a social studies Teacher who voted no. "It makes the assumption that we don't already work as hard as we can. I'm doing my absolute best. I'm leaving it all out on the field."

He added that he thought that it was misguided policy to think that paying Teachers extra money would improve students' learning, especially given all of the problems caused by poverty in students' lives. "We're the biggest Teacher union in the country," he said. "If we say yes to this, that's going to set a precedent."

The Brandeis chapter leader saw things somewhat differently. "What we had heard was that in Washington, they're going to pass something related to merit pay, and these are the Democrats who are supposed to be our friends," said Skip Delano, referring to the re-authorization of the No Child Left Behind legislation. "This is a compromise that could prevent the individual merit-pay proposals from going through."

UFT's Change of Heart

The UFT has traditionally opposed individual merit pay, asserting that it would cause detrimental competition inside schools and pit Teacher against Teacher.

Mr. Delano added that there were so many rumors and bad feelings about merit pay in general that he felt that the six weeks given to prepare for the vote, with the Thanksgiving holiday in the middle, did not give members who favored the proposal enough time to dispel the misgivings and misinformation.

"The good thing is that this offered a real opportunity to see how people think," the chapter leader said. "It will come back. Next year most likely we'll get another chance."

The Department of Education plans to expand the program to 400 schools next year, about 30 percent of the system. It is being funded by $20 million in private contributions this year, $15 million of which has been pledged already by the Broad Foundation, The Robertson Foundation, and The Partnership for New York City. Schools will find out in September 2008 whether they made enough progress to receive the bonuses. Next year's program will use public money but cannot supplant funds available for collective bargaining.

Other Staffers Eligible

If schools meet the progress goals, they will receive an average of $3,000 per UFT member, including Teachers, Guidance Counselors, Paraprofessionals, School Nurses and School Secretaries. If they meet 75 percent of the goals, they will receive an average of $1,500 per member.

UFT President Randi Weingarten said that she hoped the program would promote collaboration and motivate Principals to provide the support necessary to all staff members so that students could succeed. "The program provides an opportunity to demonstrate what can be achieved when educators are encouraged to work together," she said.

NYC Schools Rejecting Merit Pay

BDS School Borough Principal School Level Progress Report Grade
02M440 Bayard Rustin Educational Complex M John Angelet High School Under Review
03M470 Louis D. Brandeis High School M Dr. Eloise Messineo High School C
04M072 P.S. 072 M Loren Bohlen Elementary School C
04M206 P.S. 206 Jose Celso Babosa M Myrna Traverzo Elementary School D
06M218 I.S. 218 Salome Urena M June Barnett Middle School C
07X547 New Explorers High School X Denise Simone High School C
07X600 Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical EducationHig X Rene Cassanova High School C
09X011 P.S. 011 Highbridge X Elizabeth Hachar Elementary School D
09X070 P.S. 070 Max Schoenfeld X Kerry Castellano Elementary School C
09X114 P.S. X114 - Luis Llorens Torres Schools X Olivia Frances-Webber Elementary School B
10X243 West Bronx Academy for the Future X Wilper Morales, I.A. Middle School B
10X307 P.S. X307 - Eames Place X Luisa Fuentes Elementary School A
12X403 Bronx International High School X Joaquin Vega High School A
14K018 P.S. 018 Edward Bush K Karen Ford Elementary School A
14K019 P.S. 019 Roberto Clemente K Maria Witherspoon Elementary School C
14K050 J.H.S. 050 John D. Wells K Denise Jamison Middle School A
14K147 P.S. 147 Issac Remsen K Rafaela Espinal-Pacheco Elementary School A
14K157 P.S. 157 Benjamin Franklin K Maribel Torres Elementary School A
14K685 El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice K Hector Calderon High School B
15K024 PS 24 K Christina Fuentes Elementary School A
15K464 Secondary School for Research K Jill Bloomberg Middle School B
16K385 School of Business, Finance and Entrepreneurship K Glyn Marryshow Middle School A
17K091 P.S. 091 The Albany Avenue School K Mr. Solomon Long Elementary School B
17K316 Elijah Stroud K Tracey Collins Elementary School D
19K218 J.H.S. 218 James P. Sinnott K Joseph Costa Middle School A
19K224 P.S. 224 Hale A. Woodruff K George Andrews Elementary School C
19K328 P.S. 328 Phyllis Wheatley K Douglas Avila K-8 School C
22K134 P.S. K134 K Beverly Lynch Elementary School B
23K150 P.S. 150 Christopher K Sharon Wallace K-8 School D
27Q215 P.S. 215 Lucretia Mott Q Susan Rippe Elementary School B
29Q118 P.S. 118 Lorraine Hansberry Q Adele Armstrong Elementary School B
32K376 P.S. 376 K Brenda Perez Elementary School A
32K564 Bushwick Community High School K Tira Randall High School no grade - transfer school

Klein and Weingarten Announce 86% Eligible Schools to Participate in School-Wide Peformance Pay

CHANCELLOR KLEIN AND UFT PRESIDENT WEINGARTEN ANNOUNCE 86% OF ELIGIBLE HIGH-NEED SCHOOLS

OPT TO PARTICIPATE IN SCHOOL-WIDE PERFORMANCE PAY PROGRAM

Chancellor Joel I. Klein and United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten announced today that more than 200 high-need schools will participate in New York City’s first-ever school-wide performance bonus program and that $15 million in private funds have been committed to date to support this initiative. Of the approximately 240 schools serving some of the City’s most challenging students that were invited to participate in the program, 205, or 86%, elected to participate through a vote of school staff represented by the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and the principal’s agreement. Educators at the participating schools, which are located throughout the City and serve students at every grade-level, will receive monetary bonuses if their schools meet progress report goals based mainly on student achievement. A total of $20 million in private funds will be raised to support the initiative in 2007-08. Chancellor Klein and UFT President Weingarten announced that The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, The Robertson Foundation, and The Partnership for New York City have already committed a total of $15 million in private funds to support the initiative.

“I am very pleased that the overwhelming majority of schools invited to participate in this groundbreaking program have opted to participate,” Chancellor Klein said. “That so many schools want to participate demonstrates how important it is to provide tangible rewards for those performing the hard work of helping our neediest students succeed while also promoting collaboration among teachers, principals, and other school staff.

“I am gratified that The Broad Foundation, The Partnership for New York City, and The Robertson Foundation have agreed to generously support this critical initiative. Without their support, we would not be able to launch an initiative that I believe will benefit schools, staff, and, most of all, students.”

“Teachers already work extraordinarily hard. What we hope the school-wide bonus program accomplishes is, first, to promote collaboration; second, to acknowledge the contribution every school staff member makes to students’ success; and, third, to motivate principals to provide the support and conditions required for the success of all students,” UFT President Weingarten said. “The program provides an opportunity to demonstrate what can be achieved when educators are encouraged to work together.”

By December 21, each school that opted into the program must select a four-member “compensation committee” comprised of the school principal, a designee of the principal, and two staff members represented by the UFT who are elected by UFT members at each participating school. The compensation committee will decide, by consensus, how to distribute the funds among teachers and other UFT-represented employees at the school. Schools meeting progress report targets will receive a bonus pool equivalent to $3,000 per full-time UFT member at the school. Schools that meet at least 75% of progress report goals will receive a bonus

pool equal to $1,500 per full-time UFT member. The compensation committee may decide to distribute the funds evenly to all UFT members, or it can differentiate bonuses by job title or based on individual contributions. Schools will learn whether they have met their student achievement targets in Fall 2008.

In November, roughly 15% of all New York City public schools were invited to participate in the pilot school-wide performance program. Schools were randomly selected from a pool of high-need schools with eligibility based on the same factors used in creating Progress Report peer groups: average proficiency ratings on 4^th-grade State English Language Arts and Math exams for middle schools; 8^th-grade exams for high schools; poverty rates, student demographic characteristics, percent of English Language Learners and Special Education students for elementary schools.

The funds for the educator bonuses are being raised privately in the first year of the program. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Robertson Foundation have each committed $5 million to the City’s school-wide bonus program. This is the largest amount that The Broad Foundation has contributed to a teacher performance pay initiative. The Partnership for New York City has also committed funds to support the program. Next year, the program will expand to more than 400 schools, or roughly 30% of schools, and will be publicly funded. This pool is separate from any monies for collective bargaining.

“A system of professional compensation is essential for high-performing school systems like New York City,” said Eli Broad, entrepreneur and founder of The Broad Foundation. “This historic partnership between the Department of Education and the UFT underscores the significant progress New York City has made and its ongoing commitment to educate every student. Virtually every other industry compensates its highest performers, which serves as an incentive to improve individual and organization performance. In this case, improved student achievement is the most valuable accomplishment that must be rewarded.”

“The city's business community has long advocated financial incentives to recognize and reward outstanding performance by professionals who work in the most challenging schools, so we are pleased to support this innovative approach to incentive pay," said Kathryn Wylde, President & CEO of the Partnership for New York City.

A list of schools participating in the performance bonus program, and those who declined, is attached.

###

Contact: David Cantor / Melody Meyer (212) 374-5141

2

Merit Pay in Ed Notes: April 2001

In 2000/2001, I had tried to bring a resolution at the Delegate Assembly calling for the UFT to reject all forms of merit pay. Suddenly, after years of being able to get the floor Weingarten avoided calling on me for months.

It was the way she handled this issue – by refusing to have an open discussion in the union – along with her support for mayoral control that led me to lose faith in her as a union leader and ultimately took me from trying to convince her to move the UFT in a more progressive direction to putting me in opposition mode, leading to the formation of ICE in November 2003.

Here are 3 articles Ed Notes ran in April 2001 on merit pay.
ICE original core members Paul Baizerman and Vera Pavone wrote the first two.

The third, "Weingarten Heads AFT Task Force Recommending Merit Pay" includes excerpts from the Feb. 12 edition of Education Week : AFT To Urge Locals To Consider New Pay Strategies
AFT To Urge Locals To Consider New Pay Strategies

MERIT PAY: HARMFUL TO STUDENTS, TEACHERS AND UNIONS
By Paul Baizerman
This article is a companion piece to the Ed. Notes reprint on merit pay, p. 5-6. Paul Baizerman taught for 32 years in an elementary school in District 16 in Brooklyn. A former Chapter Leader and delegate, he retired in 1999.

Destroying Unity Among Teachers
Within a school the prospect of merit pay will cause teachers to pressure their colleagues to toe the line in order to get higher scores or whatever else the powers that be decide will be the "objective criteria" to determine merit. Teachers who don't pound away drilling their students in test-taking strategies or short term test-driven learning will find themselves outcasts from both administrators and colleagues. What will happen when a teacher gets a U on an observation report, or a U rating at the end of the school year as punishment because his or her students didn't score high enough, didn't spend enough time teaching for the tests, or for not following prescribed teaching methods? With such high stakes at "succeeding", the union will be hard-pressed to defend teachers who do not conform.

Although the issue is being posed as a competition between schools, merit pay will also foster negative competition among teachers within a school. Principals will set up competitive strategies in order to get teachers to violate their contract, especially when tasks are dictated by district mandates, programs, facilitators, monitors, etc. Teachers will be come under greater pressure to look good in comparison to their colleagues. Even without merit pay there are already abuses: schools where principals post standardized scores over the time clock or reward teachers with higher scores with better classes. Also, there are other favors: distribution of resources, reassignment of difficult students, room designations, programs, timing of prep periods, out-of-classroom assignments, etc. These inequalities will only be aggravated when money enters the picture. If teachers are competing now for the better classes and better programs, imagine how things will be intensified.

Again, an important question here is the role of the union in addressing the competition and inequalities. We have already seen that in some schools the chapter chairperson has one of the better jobs and often identifies with and is close to the administration. Won't these leaders be "justified" in turning their backs on the "failing" teachers? Won't those union leaders who do fight back have their hands tied even more in defending their chapter members against rigid and vengeful administrators?

Harmful to Education
Without getting into the question of the role of standardized tests, it should be pointed out that this is a controversial issue. Arguments for and against the use of these tests fill the pages of educational journals, popular magazines and union newsletters. Many educators make the argument that exclusive use of these tests for judging students and educational institutions has created gross imbalances in the way we now educate children. With merit pay introduced into the equation, this distortion will be even greater. How will a teacher ever be able to introduce anything into the learning process that doesn't produce an immediate measurable outcome? How can anyone stand up to the heavy hand of so-called proven strategies and programs? How many times have we seen these same programs that are so highly touted tossed out after failing to pay off in test results? How many times have we heard administrators say: "Studies have shown...."?----End of argument.

Cheating
This is a very sensitive issue. In an effort to defend teachers (which it should do) against a witch-hunt, the union leadership has buried its head in the sand. Yes, cheating has been rampant for years, but nobody feels comfortable talking about this in public, because they know that the wrong people will get hurt. In most cases, it is not the teachers, but the administrators who are not to blame. How many of us haven't heard the stories or seen it first hand? Administrators who tell teachers they will lose their job if they don't get the scores. Or who dole out class assignments based on score. Or who give test packages back to teachers to make the answers "conform better to the abilities of the children". Or who have teachers assign certain reading passages, vocabulary words, etc., with the knowledge that it will appear on the test. Or who close the door to the office and erase. What happened after the erasure scandal a few years ago, where some schools were discovered to have a statistically significant difference in answers changed from incorrect to correct? A slap on the wrist for one principal, a general warning to districts and principals, and on with business. The loss of tenure for principals certainly generates an incentive to find creative ways to cheat on the test.
We should ask both the Board and the union: Why do the standardized test scores of students go down markedly from one school level to another? If almost half of the children are scoring on grade level citywide in elementary school, why do the scores drop so much in intermediate school? And why are so many high school children deficient in basic skills even though they received grade level scores in elementary school? We think that the prime culprits are teaching to the test and cheating. How will merit pay affect this? By making this discrepancy even wider.

School vs. School
Every few months, we get to see the charts and read the rhetoric that is passed off as being analysis of why some schools succeed and some fail. But, those of us who work in the schools know how deceptive these statistics are. We know that we don't start off with a level playing field. That success and failure has to take into account many factors that are not under our control. It is not true that the higher achieving schools do better because they have more dedicated and talented teachers, and the lower achieving schools do worse because they have less qualified staffs who don't work as hard. There are no simple answers or solutions. (Anyone who has ever been a teacher knows that smaller class size is one big step in the right direction.) Teachers who work in higher achieving schools already have been rewarded by being able to work there. In fact, there are some schools and districts whose hiring policies are dictated by rewarding relatives and friends of administrators and politicians. Additional rewards and incentives will only further these corruptive practices.

And, for the "failing" schools, the number one strategy will be to be as selective as possible. The competition for better students has been in effect for a long time, but in recent years has been put into higher gear through the creation of mini-schools and magnet programs. In one school building, you may have several mini-schools, some "highly successful" and others "failing". Do we really believe that the principal difference between these mini-schools has to do with the quality of the teaching staff or the existence of a given learning program? How will merit pay affect this situation? Will it lead to greater balkanization, more extreme inequalities, fiercer competition for scarce resources, as well as more desperate favoritism and nepotism? A vote for merit pay will enable us to see how this will be played out. It's a tremendous risk for the children, the NYC school system and the union.


The Case Against Merit Pay For School Performance
by Vera Pavone
Originally published in March, 2001.

Vera Pavone has worked in the school system for 25 years as a school secretary and teacher. She retired in 2003.

The possibility that our union leadership is considering merit pay a negotiable issue is something we need to respond to as educators and unionists concerned with the future of education in New York City. In the last few years I have worked in three different schools in three school districts and I also have close friends who work in other schools throughout the city. I would like to share my observations based on my experience as well as the experience of others in both so-called successful and failing schools.

In every school there are teachers with a range of talents, most of whom work extremely hard, both during the school day and before and after school hours and on weekends--preparations for lessons, marking, decorating, mandated paperwork. New teachers attend graduate school classes and go to workshops. In my present school, it would be fair to say that most of the teachers, especially the young ones, have very little time for anything in their life beyond their job.

Merit pay? If it could mean that all these hard working and dedicated staff members would be rewarded, then who could be against it? But, unfortunately, any merit pay scheme will necessarily shortchange those who are not in the right school at the right time.

To begin with, who will decide what constitutes merit? Standardized test scores? Absolute scores? Improvement in scores? Pupil portfolios? Attendance? Principal evaluation? Evaluation by a team of monitors? District Office evaluation? Percentage of up-to-date and properly labeled bulletin boards? Learning centers? Percentage of holdovers and graduates?

How can we compare the merit of teachers in an upscale neighborhood school with 98% attendance, where 80% of the children score on grade level with a school in a poor neighborhood where attendance is around 85% and where 80% of the children score below grade level? How to compare a school with a limited sight special ed. classes vs. a school with MIS 2 classes? How to compare a school with 27 first year teachers (half the staff) and a school with none? How can we compare a school that shines academically because of a gifted or magnet program with a school that has lost its best students to this program? By what justification could we reward teachers who work in schools with a supportive administration and penalize the demoralized staff that work for the various "principals from hell"? Is it fair to compare the performance of a school whose administration has failed to purchase enough textbooks with a school whose administration has seen to it that there is an abundance of books and other materials?

In sum, what is the rationale for rewarding and penalizing teachers differentially when they have so little influence over their school environment?

This is not to argue that teachers don't make a difference through their individual efforts and by organizing within a school for schoolwide improvements. In the past the union has supported efforts to give teachers more power and responsibility through school-based management and other initiatives. However, we have seen that both the Board and the community school districts resisted any real power sharing with schools and these programs are mostly window dressing.

Much has been made recently about schools that make a remarkable turnaround through the efforts of administrators, teachers and successful programs that emphasize basic skill development. However, when we strip away the flowery rhetoric and look beyond the often miraculous statistics what we most often see is schools that have sacrificed long-term educational goals for short-term performance on standardized tests. We also see schools that have incorporated special programs that attract better students and screen out the children that challenge the school in both academics and behavior. An intermediate school that closes its doors once it has enrolled 150 selected children has a real head start in the race to look good. What about the schools that have to deal with the hundreds of children with poor records? What can we offer teachers to volunteer to work there? And once they are there, what can we do to make sure that they will stick around and that they will get the reward that all good teachers hope for: seeing their children turn into better students?



Weingarten Heads AFT Task Force Recommending Merit Pay
Excerpts from the Feb. 12 edition of Education Week
AFT To Urge Locals To Consider New Pay Strategies
By Jeff Archer

The American Federation of Teachers is encouraging its affiliates to explore the use of new pay systems that include some forms of pay for performance and differentiated pay for teachers in high-demand areas.

By a unanimous vote this month, the union's 39-member executive council approved a resolution stating that "we must enhance the traditional compensation schedule using approaches that contribute to more effective teaching and learning."

Although it includes several provisos, the document represents a significant break from the past for the 1 million-member union, as well as with the National Education Association.

While a growing number of AFT locals are experimenting with new pay plans, the national union had yet to make an official statement of support for specific kinds of compensation that go beyond typical salary schedules. Such schedules are based almost exclusively on the level of education a teacher has attained and her years of experience.
"It really does take us into a very forward-looking process on making some significant changes in the way teachers are compensated," Sandra Feldman, the president of the AFT, said last week. "This is, I think, revolutionary."

The statement comes at a time when many performance-related pay plans still draw mixed—and often hostile—reaction from many teachers. Last summer, delegates to the annual meeting of the 2.6 million-member NEA shot down a resolution that would have opened the door to some NEA support for experiments in the way teachers are paid.

"It's important that [the support] is coming from a union, because for so long the unions were standing against these sort of common-sense solutions," said Marci Kanstoroom, the research director for the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a Washington think tank. "But the AFT has shown a lot of spunk in taking on issues where the rest of the education establishment has had its head in the sand."

Stipulations
But the AFT stresses that it won't accept every new pay plan to come down the pike, and that it's up to each local affiliate to decide what, if any, changes to embrace.

The new resolution suggests several forms of alternative compensation as worth considering, including: bonuses for schoolwide improvement on test scores; incentives aimed at attracting teachers to schools that traditionally have had trouble recruiting and into shortage areas such as mathematics and science; and extra pay for teachers who demonstrate that they've acquired new knowledge and skills.
But the document also argues that such supplements should add to, rather than replace, the traditional system of paying teachers for their seniority and education. And it withholds support for attempts to link the salaries of individual teachers to their students' test results.

A task force headed by Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, the AFT's New York City local, drafted the resolution. During ongoing negotiations for a new teachers' contract there, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has argued that educators' pay should be tied to the progress that their students make on standardized tests, a provision the UFT pledges to continue resisting.

"We're willing to do incentives and differentials that make sense and that are not destructive to the educational process," Ms. Weingarten said.
Ed. Note: bonuses for schoolwide improvement on test scores is not destructive to the educational process?


Randi Weingarten Responds [in an email to Ed Notes]:
Randi Weingarten insists that the AFT task force recommendations are just that: recommendations for locals to follow it they fit their needs and do not necessarily mean she is leading the UFT in the direction of merit pay for schoolwide performance. She maintains that the full task force report is fairly mild and has promised to make a copy available to Education Notes. Look for further reports.

New York teachers’ union concedes on merit pay

By Peter Lamphere and Megan Behrent, United Federation of Teachers | October 26, 2007 | Page 14

NEW YORK--The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) have agreed to a form of merit pay that will greatly undermine union principles and weaken the teachers’ unions fight against similar proposals in legislation currently before Congress.

Under the new agreement for schoolwide “bonus” plans, teachers at the lowest performing schools in New York City would be offered merit pay in exchange for improved test scores and reaching other achievement benchmarks set by the Department of Education.

At a UFT delegates’ assembly October 17, UFT President Randi Weingarten argued that these bonuses will shut the door to more insidious plans for individual merit pay, and would promote collaboration among teachers.

In fact, the plan will foster divisions within schools and weaken the union. As the New York Post says, “clearly, the camel’s nose is under the tent” for the type of merit pay proposed in the renewal of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, now being debated in Congress.

The UFT’s parent union, the American Federation of Teachers, along with the National Education Association, have resisted merit pay schemes. But now, the UFT has accepted merit pay by another name, and placed an incredibly divisive tool in the hands of New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and the principals.

Here is how it will work:

-- Some 200 high-needs schools (about 15 percent of those in the system) will be invited to participate. The number will double next year if it passes an independent review.

-- A 55 percent majority of UFT members in those schools must vote to accept the plan. However, participation in the plan will be a mitigating factor against closing a school, thus holding the threat of closure over the heads of our members if they vote “no.”

-- Once a school accepts the plan, it will be allocated an amount equal to $3,000 per UFT member if it meets the city’s benchmarks for testing.

-- This money will be distributed by a “compensation committee,” made up of a principal, his or her designee, and two UFT members elected by the staff. If the committee does not reach consensus on how to distribute the money, or the staff votes down its decision, then the bonuses are forfeit. This means that a principal can insist on a particular method of distribution (by test scores, etc.), and the staff must agree, or lose the money.

At the delegates’ meeting Kit Wainer, a Brooklyn UFT chapter leader who ran against Weingarten on an opposition slate last year, pointed out how the merit pay agreement would divide teachers and lead to finger-pointing about who wasn’t carrying their weight within a school.

There were a few speakers in favor of the proposal, mostly on the basis that it helped the union reach an agreement with the city to jointly lobby the New York state legislature to allow teachers to retire at age 55 with 25 years of service, rather than the current 30 years.

One delegate moved to table the issue so delegates would have an opportunity to discuss it with the rank and file, but this was ruled out of order. In a confusing rush, the delegates then voted for the plan by a large majority. A proposal for a national teachers’ demonstration against individual merit pay was voted down by delegates, although Weingarten promised to contact the AFT about the possibility.

However, thanks to Weingarten’s “bonus” plan, merit pay is now a reality in the New York Public Schools. The delegates’ assembly meeting was a historic turning point in the history of our union--for the worse.

Ed Note: The above article was posted on ICE mail but I do not haev the exact soruce. Peter and Megan are members of Teachers for a Just Contract, an alternative caucus in the UFT.