The Dumbing-Down of America And The Teacher Marit -Pay System

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Should teachers be paid based on how well their students perform? There is a great debate concerning the endorsement of the merit pay system. Merit pay has turned out to be an issue politicians continue to support and teachers continue to reject. According to Murnane and Cohen (1985), merit pay is “a compensation scheme that bases individual teachers’ compensation on their performance in teaching their students, as measured by either students’ test score gains or by supervisor’s evaluations of teacher actions in the classroom.”

Teacher merit pay is said to increase test scores, bring quality teachers into schools and fairly pay those teachers who work hard. When one analyzes the system, the negative results far outweigh the few positive results that merit pay could bring to teachers and the educational system. In the United States, policymakers are divided on whether merit pay should be administered or not. Proponents of the merit pay system believe it is the answer to the educational barriers in the United States. In the 1990s, different merit pay systems were evaluated across the United States.  While many teachers enjoyed “extra pay for extra work,” many plans that tried to give incentives to teachers through the use of money did very little to improve test scores and teacher effectiveness (Epstein).

Despite past failures of the merit pay system, as of 2005, 20 states in the United States had implemented a sort of merit pay system (Johnson, 2006). Merit pay would inspire potential teachers to give the profession more consideration as a viable career choice, rather than a personal sacrifice for higher good. By tying salaries to performance, the profession would look more modern and credible, thus attracting young college graduates to the classroom (Pros and Cons of Merit Pay for Teachers). Those in favor of merit pay for teachers, which include fospittingesident George W. Bush, who started the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), and former President Barack Obama, whose administration founded “Race to the Top,” have noted that, over $4 billion has been spent with the aim of improving the educational system by the Federal government in the United States. According to a study done by The Urban Institute, merit pay might “not succeed at implementing lasting, effective... plans that had a demonstrated ability to improve students learning” (“Urban Institute Study of Merit Pay System”).

The most important question that needs an answer is whether there can ever be a “fair” way to measure the “effectiveness of a teacher” and teacher improvements. As of December 27, 2014, there was no well recognized or fair way of measuring teacher improvement and or effectiveness in class and student improvement as whole. Many who have tried to track the effectiveness of the merit pay system came to the realization that, the system would be a total failure if generally implemented on every school. Julie E. Koppich, a San Francisco based author who wanted to research the system’s effectiveness in one of the largest states, California, discovered that, “the state was not keeping data on the program’s effectives” (Jacobsen). The fact that even the technology hub which houses some of the biggest data processing companies like Facebook, Google found it difficult to keep records alone is evident of how unrealistic it would be to track or measure merit pay for the whole country.

Another area of great uncertainty is how teachers would be nominated for merit pay. Many suggest that, since the principals oversee schools, the authority to nominate a teacher for merit pay should be placed in their hands. Other also suggests voting by fellow teachers as means of selection for merit pay. If indeed principals are given the power to nominate teachers, there might be the risk of ‘arbitrariness and favoritism. Staff morale will suffer if subservience defines merit pay” (Teacher Merit Pay Is a Bad Idea). Should the requirements for merit pay be students’ scores on standardize tests, teachers might as well just focus on test preparation and teach to pass the test. These days, education is all about memorizing notes and spiting it back to the teacher for an A. We are losing our critical thinking skills because everything is so narrow. It is like being taught that 1+2=3, once we have 2+1, then our mind goes blank. We just memorize to pass the test. That is the kind of system merit pay is encouraging if a teacher’s pay should be based on how well his or her students perform on standardized tests. A teacher who is willing to enrich students might sometimes go above the minimum requirements of the curriculum and do something extra other than just focusing on test preparation.

Based on the evidence, it is hard to say that merit based pay benefits the clear majority of teachers. It's also hard to say that it is good for any students. A University of Florida study showed that students taught by teachers participating in merit pay programs only scored one or two percentage points higher on standardized tests than did other students. Other negative factors worth mentioning when talking about the merit pay topic is the issue of merit pay lowering staff morale by discouraging the teaching disadvantaged students (Debatepedia). Those in favor of merit pay want teachers’ pay to be based on how well his or her students on standardized tests but “teacher evaluation is much more complicated than simply looking at test scores. It requires careful examination of teacher behaviors, how a teacher relates to the students, and his or her command of subject matter being taught. This cannot be judged by just looking at a student’s test scores” (Teacher Compensation Based on Performance). It is indeed not fair, logical or ethical to pay a teacher based on how well his or her students perform on standardized tests. Teachers do not get the chance or the power to choose who comes into their classroom to be taught. All they know is, they have students who they should teach. The ratification of merit pay will drive teachers away from teaching disadvantaged students because no one will like to work hard for a pay and be paid less while others get paid more; unless it is a volunteering job of course. Teachers regard this act of imposing merit pay as an unfair punishment not only to the students but to the teacher as well because most disadvantaged students in some way already neglected by their own peers and the only comfort they may get may be from the faculty/caretaker who works directly with them. Therefore, setting up a system in which teachers are paid based on how well their students perform on standardized tests is highly unethical.

The introduction of merit pay could also lead to discrimination against certain institutions. For example, Beth Devos and President Trump allocated several hundred million dollars intended to fund private and charter schools. For those who might not be aware, charter schools have a lot of flexibility and very little accountability when compared to public schools., They serve as drains that take funding away from the traditional public schools; meanwhile, public schools process the most students. Charter schools can legally be for-profit thus giving private companies freedom to profit on the backs of students. Additionally, when there is very little regulation on institutions financials, it leads to fraud as can be seen in reports on Charter schools. It also leads to blatant uncontrolled discrimination as in the case of Lighthouse Christian Academy which denied admission to LGBT children.  Beth Devos ignored all these and the fact that about a third of charter schools opened in just 2000 closed by 2010. (If someone can explain the rational to me, it would be appreciated)

People say merit pay could create a system which would “especially be helpful in enabling schools with lower socioeconomic status attract qualified teachers” (Debatepedia). A qualified teacher who loves his or her job is someone whose objective is to improve student education and would not really mind the socioeconomic status of the school where he or she is teaching. But, according to the Teacher Advantage Program, there was an increase in about 61 teachers who started to teach in the top two lowest socioeconomic status schools in Madison School District because of the introduction of the merit pay system (Tap System.org). The idea of using money to lure a teacher to a place in he/she would rather not be is mostly not going to improve our educational system. In such a case, if the source of the empowerment which is the money is no more, then the whole system fails and goes back to level one but this time, we have wasted more resources than we should. The higher the numbers of teachers who prove themselves to be highly effective, the lower the value of the merit pay. To elaborate more on that if money is being allocated for merit pay and many teachers seem to be doing what is expected of them. Thus, raise test scores then a time will come and the government will have no money to pay the extra lucrative incentive. When all things are considered, merit pay would rather drive teachers away from their true duty.

From a labor perspective merit pay would also divide the work force and in the long run lessen our ability to fight collectively to improve public education. If salaries were not simply based on years of experience and number of college credits earned or additional services provided, the teaching force at any workplace would be more stratified (differentiated) and much less willing to stand together during a conflict during a contract struggle. The role of the union would be seriously compromised.

Similarly, merit pay will eventually lead to a worse educational system than we currently have. Nobody is perfect. We need help from one another occasionally. Teachers share knowledge and experiences they may have gone through with other teachers. That makes the school a more unified force with the aim of helping students succeed. But, with the consideration of the merit pay system, teachers will be reluctant to help other teachers with the fear of not being able to be the one to receive the merit pay award. On a more scientific base, the introduction of merit pay system could create unhealthy competition among faculty. An example of that could be stress. This stress could negatively affect the mental health of teachers who, by no fault of theirs, have students who have no enthusiasm for education.

 I say let’s just give bonuses to all teachers at problem schools where there are high poverty rates, high crime rates and gaga affiliations. This way, teachers who face the greatest challenges teaching under such difficult condition would be correctly rewarded for their services. Instead of just giving out money to anybody who produces high test scores by which ever unscrupulous means we may not even know about. Marie Gryphon, an education policy analyst at Cato Institute, also made some practical objections to the merit pay system. She said, “merit pay would favor teachers in wealthy neighborhoods whose students come to school already with excellent skill” (Cato Institute). In other words, teachers who contributed almost nothing to a student’s welfare or grades get paid for something they did not even do. The problem with merit-based pay is that there's no reasonable, rational, consistent way to measure performance... teaching is more art than science. Every student is different, with a unique perspective, background, learning style, and, more importantly, pace of development. To penalize a teacher for having a group of students who develop more slowly than others is absurd. No matter how good the teacher is, there's no way to force a child to develop faster than they naturally can. Marie Grphon also noted that, merit pay would ‘worsen the problem of teachers cheating for their students on standardized tests just to avoid the consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act.” The thought of desperate teachers engaging in unscrupulous acts to gain merit makes the whole system a waste of money and time; especially when most teachers would do anything just to gain an unfair advantage over their colleagues. The system creates the temptation to cheat.

What the educational system really needs is to follow the school of thought “It takes a whole village to raise a child”. In this case, the “child” referring to students’ and the “village” all the factors that play into helping a child to grow successfully. For a student to perform well, the student needs support from home, healthy meals, good parental guidance and above all love. The other factor is support from other faculty. This may give the child a sense of belonging and motivation. For a disabled person, it may even call for more personable specialists who would devise better learning strategies to help disabled students grasp the material better. Teachers do not have to compete for better pay, what teachers need are annual “training, professional development, time with other educators and a very supportive administration” (American Federation of Teachers). Teachers do need lower class sizes, safe and clean place to work.

In final consideration, I hope I have been able to convince you that teacher merit pay will not work but rather lead to classes such as arts, music, and physical education being omitted from the curriculum because the admission of standardized tests is not possible in such areas. What it will do in the long run is lead to nothing but three thousand five hundred and thirty thousand times backward for every ten steps forward.

Leave a little comment on how we can truly transform the dumbing down of America.