Conclusion

These are the list of questions presented in the introduction.  I will answer these questions based on the research I have completed on the effectiveness of a merit pay salary system. 

·  Does merit-based pay improve education?

The studies vary.  Some studies say merit pay does improve test scores.  Other studies show, merit pay does not improve test scores.  However, merit pay does not improve education.  Education is described as teaching beyond reading, writing and arithmetic. 

·  Does it improve the quality of teaching by incentivizing hard work?

Most teachers would agree, according to a study on Teacher Attitudes about Compensation Reform, “Teachers prefer pay reforms that reward criteria over which they have more control, such as work location or subject area.  Teachers are far less supportive of pay reforms that link rewards to performance” (Goldhaber, D., DeArmond, M., & DeBurgomaster, S., 2010).  In short, teachers should be paid more in if they are working in hard to fill positions. 

·  Does it help attract and retain quality teachers and weed out bad teachers?

It certainly does not attract quality teachers.  Most teachers are not in favor of merit pay in connection to student performance (Goldhaber, D., DeArmond, M., & DeBurgomaster, S., 2010).   Performance pay adds stress, teaching is stressful enough; adding more stress will not increase the likelihood of retaining teachers. 

·  Does merit pay take the fun and passion out of teaching and over-focus it on measures?

 Speaking from my own experience (11 years of teaching), when all of your focus goes into test scores and improving student performance, the students are not as excited.  They are bored.  When the students are bored, teachers are frustrated. 

·  Does it create undesirable competition between teachers and undercut cooperation?

According to Kathy Boudreau (Drevitch, G., 2006), President of Massachusetts Teacher Association, says merit pay undercuts collaboration with teachers.  Now, of course, a union leader would denounce merit pay, in most situations.  However, it makes sense when you think about Toner’s interview (Toner, C., 2011) in respects to schools only having two incentivized positions.  Teachers will not collaborate.  Instead they will compete with one another.

·  Does it discourage teachers from going to needy schools?

It depends on the merit pay system.  If teachers are being paid strictly by student performance, then yes.  If teachers are paid more for going to hard to fill positions, it is likely to encourage teachers to go to these schools.  However, in a conversation I had with a teacher who works in a “hard to fill position”, she said she would have to be paid more than the commonly $2000-$3,500 per year. 

·  Can teacher merit be successfully measured?

Teacher effectiveness can be measured, to a certain extent.  However, it cannot be measured solely on student performance.  Strong principals must be able to identify strong teaching practices.  Principals have varying perspectives of good teaching, though.  This makes it difficult to analyze and pinpoint effective teaching because of subjectivity within the field. 

·  Does it fall prey to principal cronyism?

Principals can only afford to reward a certain number of teachers in a building (Toner, C., 2011).  In the end, the principal makes a subjective call on who gets these bonuses or incentive pay. 

·  Does it encourage teachers to cheat?

Historically, teachers have cheated (Boles K. C.,& Troen, V., 2006) to get the results they want.  In no doubt will teachers teach to the test.  The test scores may improve, but are the students actually learning new skills (outside of test taking)? 

·  Does the market demonstrate the importance of pay for performance?

Ghorpade’s (1999) article actually refutes the idea of using performance based incentives in the business world.  The market, or better phrased the public simply does not understand the consequences.  Teachers (Goldhaber, D., DeArmond, M., & DeBurgomaster, S., 2010) are not backing performance pay, if teachers are not backing it, it does not belong. 

·  What do past examples of merit pay around the world demonstrate?

Troen and Boles (2006) gave a good example of how merit pay failed in England centuries ago.  A study was done conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, where 534 studies were collected from schools tied to teacher pay-for-performance programs.  The findings: the students at schools with teacher pay-for-performance programs scored an average of one to two percentage points higher on standardized tests than their peers at schools where no bonuses were offered (American Association of School Administrators).  With teaching to the test and eliminating non-assessed curricular areas, gaining a few percentages does not seem worth the effort.  

·  Overall, is merit pay for teachers good education policy?

I think this quote summarizes, at least partially, some of the problems with connecting pay to performance:

“Still, there are problems with performance-based systems.  One is that it

can be difficult to connect measurable behaviors to quality teaching.  It is

relatively easy to count how many times a teacher asks a question requiring

critical thinking, for example, but not how many times a teacher says something

that inspires a student to work harder or to consider advanced study in a

discipline.  While a great deal is known about teaching and learning, a certain

amount of mystery and magic still remain.  By one estimate, only about 3% of a

teacher’s contribution to student achievement can be explained by skills that are

easy to measure.96  The remaining 97% is attributable to qualities such as

The Promises and Pitfalls of Alternative Teacher Compensation Approaches 

enthusiasm, which are not measurable and for which good proxies are not

available” (Harris, D.C., 2007).

Proponents for merit pay or performance pay are looking for measurable outcomes and teaching simply does not have many meaningful measurable outcomes.  Teaching is an art and art is hard to grade.  Now, when merit looks to increase pay for hard to fill positions, I get it and I fully support this sort of merit pay.  Beyond this, I cannot see much reason for establishing performance pay.  Not only do the cons outweigh the pros, the pros simply add too many cons into the mix.  For example, standardized test scores making slight improvement, yet history lessons and curriculum getting dropped.