Labor & Employment Law

Study: Teachers Working So Hard That Merit Pay Doesn?t Work

By James Parks

A new study released today knocks down one of the falsehoods spread by the anti-public school crowd. The study found that offering teachers annual bonuses of up to $15,000 had no effect on student test scores. The reason: Teachers already were working so hard that the extra money was not an incentive.

Pay reform, merit pay or differentiated pay is one of the hot ideas in education reform and is backed by the White House, federal and state governments and foundations. But Matthew Springer, the Vanderbilt professor who led the study, told the Washington Post:    

Pay reform is often thought to be a magic bullet. That doesn’t appear to be the case here. We need to develop more thoughtful and comprehensive ways of thinking about compensation. But at the same time, we’re not even sure whether incentive pay is an effective strategy for improving the system itself.

The study from the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt found no significant difference between the results from classes led by teachers who received bonuses and those led by teachers who did not.

The AFT supports pay plans that are locally negotiated rather than imposed because local officials and teachers know best what will work in their schools. Differentiated pay plans must be locally negotiated, voluntary, schoolwide, and must promote a collaborative work environment, AFT says. Well-designed compensation systems based on differentiated pay for teachers must also include an adequate base pay for all teachers among other factors, AFT adds.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on September 21, 2010 (boomark / email).