Teacher Incentive Fund
The Obama administration has proposed a very large increase in the federal government’s Teacher Incentive Fund, a program that lets districts apply for competitive grants to get money for programs that help them retain and reward the most effective teachers and administrators. Like a lot of Obama administration ideas, this one has run into some trouble on the Hill. Some Senators represent states that just basically don’t have the kind of high-poverty schools with high concentrations of minorities that are the intended beneficiaries of these sorts of reforms. Other members just prefer to see federla money spread around across a large number of pet projects rather than focused on a few targeted initiatives. And the national teacher’s unions don’t like anything that involves shifting to a performance model for compensation.
Obviously, the whole idea of incentive- or performance-based pay is controversial on its own terms. But the debate has spurred a bunch of basically red herring arguments from opponents looking for other reasons to bring down the TIF boost. Fortunately, CAP’s Robin Chait and Raegan Miller are on the case with a useful “myths vs facts” document on the issue.
18 Responses to “Teacher Incentive Fund”
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July 14th, 2009 at 9:31 am
If “the national teacher’s [sic] unions don’t like anything that involves shifting to a performance model for compensation,” why did AFT staffers just have this presentation on performance pay at their national professional development meeting yesterday??
July 14th, 2009 at 9:31 am
For a classic take-down of pay-for-performance in teaching please read this by educational psychologist Alfie Kohn:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/meritpay.htm
July 14th, 2009 at 9:48 am
What would make even more sense would be to tie any such grants to an absolute limit to the number of management layers between a teacher in the class and teh superintendent. Set it at something like 3, and you’ll get far better results than just throwing money.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Pay for performance has a long track record in industry. Over 30% of stock option awards were backdated, at least unethical and most were illegal under SEC regulations. Top executives cheated on the most pure form of incentive compensation over a twelve year period.
Wall Street packaged investment pigs to maximize bonuses. Bribing people hurts quality. I expect teachers are just as smart as CEO’s. Expect suboptimization as educators focus on maximizing take home pay vs. quality education. It’s predictable.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:21 am
The actual ingredients of better schools would include smaller classes in newer buildings with better textbooks and other media, taught by professional teachers to students who receive other appropriate support such as meals or before and after-school childcare if they have working parents. But doing all that would involve spending money on the “wrong” persons- students, teachers, and working parents.
So, “the best and the brightest” keep looking for an Option B- one that will persuade better teachers to work with oversized classes in old buildings teaching undernourished students who have no place to go when the school day ends. The great virtue of this “Option B” is that it rewards the right people- a few high-powered teachers and administrators.
You can talk all you want about how the cities are the centers of innovation and improvement, but I’m just glad to live in a semi-rural community where people believe that the best way to improve schools is to make them generally better. Who knows, maybe the fact that the buildings are modern and the classes are small encourages the large number of parents we have volunteering as “classroom aides”.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:23 am
While not in education, President Obama’s new Surgeon General would not be enticed by bribes. Her life story is one of dedication and service, regardless of financial gain.
“Clearly she wasn’t in it for money.”
http://stateofthedivision.blogspot.com/2009/07/obamas-new-surgeon-general-eschewed-pay.html
July 14th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Speaking as an admittedly biased math teacher, I think Alfie gets it in spades. Anybody can teach a few bright, self-motivated students with the appropriate classroom facilities; few can teach well, especially with larger class sizes with an admixture of abilities and motivations.
Teaching is, in short, a profession, one that should be on a par with the profession of, say, lawyer or solicitor. It’s not, and that’s a large part of the problem. From this starting point, all else follows, including the skepticism of ‘merit’ pay. Let teachers have some authority in their classrooms that can’t be overridden by administrators, parents, or a weak-kneed school board. Give them merit pay, but let other teachers be responsible for the evaluations. Not administrators, and not parents. Especially not parents. I’ve come around to the notion that the number one problem with the schools these days is . . . the parents. And not just the stereotypical poor inner-city kind. The overly-involved ‘my kid is a genius, your tests just don’t show that’ is just as bad if not far, far worse.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:09 am
MY… Just once, could you actually cite real research that doesn’t come from a think-tank marketing machine? Oh wait… they pay the bills, don’t they?
The debunking of the test-based myth is total crap. These reforms are based on the introduction of a business model into schooling that seeks to establish clear, easily measured metrics. The point of these reforms are to tie teacher pay to standardized assessments… The result is predictable: the curriculum for the children of the poor will be further relegated to the cognitive basement and the education lobby will make more money for their [your] masters.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Don’t forget how much federal workers like incentive pay:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR2009062503913.html?hpid=sec-nation
July 14th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Or how well pay for performance is working with federal contractors:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/05/AR2009070502520.html
July 14th, 2009 at 11:58 am
For a real time example, AIG performance bonuses are up for grabs:
http://stateofthedivision.blogspot.com/2009/07/double-edged-sword-of-reward-punishment.html
July 14th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I’d like Alfie Kohn to take a crack at CAP’s “myths vs. facts” on teacher incentive pay. It’s full of holes, management theory wise.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Students are rewarding with “merit.” How hard they work and smart they are, as these things go, determines what grade they merit. Why should teaching be different?
To answer that question requires we consider another one: how closely do we believe that a student’s grade, or a test score, represents what they have learned? The same would go for teaching: how closely do we think a student’s performance mirrors the teacher’s competency?
Sort those out first, then discuss how to compensate teacher so that more quality people consider teaching as a career.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
For anyone interested in a more in-depth debunking of rewards for performance by Alfie Kohn, I highly recommend his book Punished by Rewards. It takes a look at the failure of using rewards to manipulate behavior in schools, business and parenting.
His premise is that using rewards as a motivator may be ingrained in our belief system, but the evidence for it actually working is slim and the evidence that it is ultimately detrimental is quite strong. We take it as received wisdom that rewarding good behavior and punishing bad will lead to better results, but it’s rare that we actually question the assumptions behind this Skinnerian worldview.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
We do this is schools, but does it really work the way we want it, too? As a teacher, I see the students who don’t earn good grades become disillusioned with school by 6th or 7th grade. Meanwhile, the students who do earn good grades become praise junkies that have real trouble appreciating knowledge as valuable beyond the grades and honors they receive. Students who learn to love knowledge and school do so in spite of grades not because of them.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
I agree with James Robertson. This must be the nexus of the universe!
July 15th, 2009 at 12:45 am
Agree with NS in Nova. Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards is eye-opening and a must-read. I know a teacher that considers it the most important book she ever read.
July 16th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
[...] The education elements of the Obama agenda haven’t gotten much attention yet, but the Teacher Incentive Fund boost cleared a key subcommittee mostly intact earlier this week and union leader Randi Weingarten put [...]