‘Incentive pay’ for teachers misses the point by Noel Candelaria

Related to today's earlier post on teachers, do also read this piece by Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA) President Noel Candelaria on incentive pay in the San Antonio Express News. 

-Angela

‘Incentive pay’ for teachers misses the point

By Noel Candelaria, For the Express-News Feb. 3, 2019

I don’t often agree with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, but I applaud him for taking an important first step toward addressing the low pay of Texas public school teachers and keeping effective educators where they belong — in the classroom.

Texas teachers, on average, are paid $7,300 a year less than the national average, and I hope Patrick’s endorsement of a $5,000 across-the-board pay raise will help convince legislators to begin closing that gap.

But the second part of the lieutenant governor’s proposal — rewarding a handful of teachers with extra “incentive” or “merit” pay — misses the point. The point is that all of Texas’ 5.4 million schoolchildren deserve adequately compensated, effective teachers in their classrooms, and we don’t accomplish that goal by being selective.

A permanent $5,000 pay raise for all teachers is only a start in the right direction. Whatever else the state may spend on improved teacher salaries should be spread across the board, not reserved for teachers who can squeeze out higher scores on narrowly focused STAAR tests or jump through some other data-driven hoop that usually is required for extra pay.

Here is the real problem, and it has several, interrelated parts:

Virtually all of Texas’ 350,000 schoolteachers are underpaid, and thousands of effective teachers are leaving the classroom every year for more financially rewarding professions.

Their modest salaries are further eroded by rising health insurance premiums, now averaging $359 a month, based on a TSTA survey of its members.

These same teachers, on average, spend $738 a year on classroom supplies for which they are not reimbursed, according to the same survey.

Anywhere from 30 percent to 50 percent of Texas teachers have quit or will quit the profession by the time they finish their fifth year in the classroom. Singling out a handful of these teachers for “incentive” pay is not going to solve this problem or improve the learning prospects for the vast majority of Texas schoolchildren.

Not Everyone Wants to Move Toward Rating Educators by Student Progress

By Jay Mathews | Washington Post
Monday, November 17, 2008

For a while, the fight over how to improve public schools seemed to be quieting down. During the presidential campaign, Republican and Democratic education advisers happily finished each other's sentences on such issues as expanding charter schools, recruiting better teachers and, in particular, rating schools by how much students improve.

Moving to the growth model for school assessment, by measuring each student's progress, seems to be the favorite education reform of the incoming Obama administration. Up till now, we have measured schools by comparing the average student score one year with the average for the previous year's students. It was like rating pumpkin farmers by comparing this year's crop with last year's rather than by how much growth they managed to coax out of each pumpkin.

The growth model appeals to parents because it focuses on each child. It gives researchers a clearer picture of what affects student achievement and what does not. Officials throughout the Washington area have joined the growth model (sometimes called "value-added") fan club. The next step would be to use the same data to see which teachers add the most value to their students each year.

Of course, as often happens in education, that lovely consensus is proving too good to be true, mostly because of the teacher issue. The bad news was delivered recently by Education Week reporter Stephen Sawchuk, who has been checking how the growth model was actually being received by state politicians. It turns out some legislators have been building trapdoors under the welcome mats. California banned in 2006 any use of student growth data in teacher evaluations or compensation decisions. New York last year prohibited the use of such data for tenure decisions for at least two years. Other states are staying away from anything that ties student success to a teacher's pay or job security.

Go ahead. Blame the teacher unions. They make no apology for their opposition to this approach. But they have good arguments. Congress will have to revise the No Child Left Behind law to install the growth model, and most support for the idea there extends only to rating schools, not teachers. Assessing instructors by how much their students improve seems reasonable to people like me who have never taken a psychometrics course, but nobody has sufficiently tested the statistical devices for doing that, and they might prove to be expensive.

I asked two National Education Association officials, Joel Packer, director of education policy and practice, and Bill Raabe, director of collective bargaining and member advocacy, why we couldn't test students in September and May, calculate how much they improved and use that information in deciding whether to keep particular teachers and how much to pay them. Raabe said that would only work if the distribution of students in classes was randomized. I understood his point but did not see why good teachers couldn't show some progress no matter what sort of students they have. Raabe and Packer sent me more quotes from experts who weren't any clearer.

People who have studied the public schools that have significantly raised the achievement levels of impoverished students tend to accept the idea that teachers' salaries and jobs must eventually be tied to classroom results. "Of course," said Andrew Rotherham, an education think tank founder, blogger and Virginia Board of Education member who, at 37, is likely to be a major player on this issue for years to come.

But Rotherham hastened to add that his state is going to take it slow. A poorly planned system to fire teachers based on growth data could bring lawsuits. "We are never going to get to where we need to go without more research," he said. Nancy S. Grasmick, Maryland state superintendent of schools, agreed. "The decisions we make to strengthen schools should not be made by speculation or unproven theory, but on data." President-elect Barack Obama is likely to nod when he hears that.

I asked Raabe and Packer about an alternative approach -- rating schools, not teachers, and replacing the principal if students do not improve. The NEA is not comfortable with that, either. Making the principal responsible for creating the conditions for student growth works only if the principal has the power to hire and fire staff, and that is a no-no for the association.

Could Obama broker a compromise? Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told me that she wanted teachers to learn how to use growth data "and then see where we go from there." Would the unions agree to giving principals firing power in exchange for using not just tests but also the student work portfolios and public presentations that Raabe and Packer endorsed as authentic ways to judge how well kids have been taught?

Many Republican and Democratic policy experts want to try something like that. The growth model in some form will have its day, sooner or later.

But about those pumpkin farmers: It seems to me that the best measure of their work is not how much their big, orange vegetables grow but how well they stand up to my inexpert carving for Halloween and how many extra slices of pumpkin pie I eat on Thanksgiving.

The human equivalent to that kind of quality assessment is how well each school's students do in college, in jobs and in life. I don't think we have a growth model that measures that, but people are working on it.

Email: mathewsj@washpost.com

Teacher quality in Texas inequitable, study says

This is an important report. We really need now to factor in how the teacher shortage is just that more critical for English language learners, many of them immigrant youth--together with the fact that their representation is increasing significantly within our state as well. -Angela

Teacher quality in Texas inequitable, study says
Disproportionate number of poorly certified educators in poor schools

By GARY SCHARRER Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
Aug. 5, 2008, 9:37AM

AUSTIN — Texas is headed for big problems if state lawmakers don't fix serious inequities in teacher quality and experience between rich and poor schools, a noted education researcher warned Monday.
Wealthy, high-performing schools attract and keep experienced, higher-quality teachers, while schools with large numbers of low-income and minority students are left with less-experienced teachers, according to a new study.
Schools with high populations of low-income students have twice as many teachers not properly certified to teach math and science as schools in more affluent neighborhoods, according to the report.
In high poverty schools, nearly 20 percent of math teachers and 40 percent of science teachers were assigned to teach courses for which they were not properly certified.
Unless state legislators act, the gap is expected to grow, as incoming high school students are now required to take four years of math and science.
"We could be in a world of trouble in five years when this plays out," said Edward Fuller, a professor in the Educational Policy and Planning program at The University of Texas at Austin.
Fuller conducted his study for the Association of Texas Professional Educators.
Meaningful incentive pay
"Unfortunately, poor, minority and low-achieving students are far more likely to be taught by an under-qualified teacher than their more affluent, white and high-achieving peers," said Jerry Bonham, president of the 112,000-member association and a middle school English teacher in Mesquite.
"The students most in need of the most qualified teachers are the least likely to be taught by them."
Some school districts offer incentive pay in efforts to entice experienced and high-quality teachers to low-income, low-performing schools, but the typical $1,000 to $3,000 bonus is insufficient for teachers to deal with the extra stress and pressures, Fuller said.
It's going to take extra mentoring, more professional staff development and meaningful incentive pay to improve the teacher quality at low-income, low-performing schools, he said.
"Otherwise, we will continue to have the inequity. It's not going to go away," Fuller said.
Matching funds required
Lawmakers set aside extra money last year for teacher incentive pay, but many districts did not apply because matching funds were required.
House Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, expects lawmakers to consider legislation next year involving high-quality teachers and teacher retention at hard-to-staff schools. Eissler said he would like to see bonuses in the $10,000 range for hard-to-fill positions.
"It's been shown that the most important factor in closing the achievement gaps is the work of an effective teacher. We need to get as many as we can in the right places," he said.
Texas' example
If someone wrote a primer on "how to make your teachers quit, they would look at what the state of Texas does," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, a member of the Senate Education Committee. "We place brand new teachers in very hard-to-teach schools. We don't have strong mentoring programs, and they get very frustrated."
It's an easier career choice for experienced teachers to stay in higher-performing schools, she said, "where they have a fighting chance that at least three-quarters of the student body will pass the test."
It typically takes court litigation to force legislators into action on public education issues, she acknowledged.
About 56 percent of the 4.6 million students attending Texas public schools come from low-income families, and the percentage of white children continues to drop — down to 35 percent last school year.
gscharrer@express-news.net

Results mixed in first year of Texas' teacher merit

Results mixed in first year of Texas' teacher merit
pay plan

Exclusive: Study finds bonuses didn't sway most to
alter methods

By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
tstutz@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN ˆ The first year of Texas' $100 million
experiment in school reform ˆ involving an estimated
52,000 teachers in the largest merit pay plan in the
nation ˆ produced mixed results and didn't motivate
most teachers to change their classroom techniques.

An independent study funded by the state showed that
the Texas Educator Excellence Grant program drew a
favorable response from teachers in the 1,148 schools
where bonuses were awarded, but the study also said
massive turnover of schools in the plan each year will
make it difficult to achieve success over the long
haul.

In addition, according to researchers, school
districts gave bonuses far less than the $3,000 to
$10,000 range recommended by the Legislature. Trying
to spread the money among more teachers, districts
gave average maximum bonuses of $2,263.

Hundreds of campuses in North Texas are participating
in the program, including 90 in the Dallas school
district this year. The plan was created under the
school finance reform law passed by the Legislature in
2006.

The 161-page study on the merit pay program was
conducted by the National Center on Performance
Incentives under a contract with the Texas Education
Agency. Researchers who worked on the study were from
Vanderbilt University, the University of Missouri and
the RAND Corp., a nonprofit think tank.

State education officials said Thursday they were
pleased with the first year of the grant program and
the findings of the study, though they are
implementing changes to address some of the
shortcomings identified. Teacher leaders, on the other
hand, said the study affirms problems that they
predicted would befall the program.

"We think the program is accomplishing what the
Legislature intended," said Jerel Booker, TEA director
of education initiatives and performance.

"One of the primary goals was to retain good teachers
in our schools, and at least 70 percent of these
teachers said they have a strong desire to participate
in the program."

Mr. Booker said teacher retention is particularly
important for the 1,148 schools that were in the plan
last year because all serve a large percentage of
economically disadvantaged children ˆ one of the
requirements for eligibility.

Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association
said the study highlights problems that hampered
previous efforts to set up merit pay for public school
teachers. The association and other teacher
organizations have opposed the state's merit pay plan,
contending all teachers should get raises because
salaries in Texas are low compared with other states.

Pointing to one finding that 85 percent of the
teachers in the program said it did not affect their
work in the classroom, Mr. Kouri said: "What did the
$100 million accomplish? These teachers were already
doing a good job."

He also cited a major flaw in the program that was
identified by the study, that 60 percent of the
schools in the program last year were dropped from the
plan this year because they failed to meet performance
and demographic targets.

"The way it is designed now, a majority of teachers
can't count on merit pay being available at their
schools for more than one year," he said.

The high turnover of schools in the program, according
to the study, "can weaken the incentives by lowering
the probability of a teacher's school being eligible
for [the grant program] in multiple years."

In addition, teachers may be discouraged from adopting
new teaching approaches ˆ which require investments of
time and training ˆ if they believe their school's
program will be gone after one year, researchers
noted.

Mr. Booker said one of the reasons for the high
turnover of schools is the limited amount of funding
in the program, which provides only enough money for
about 1,100 schools a year. He said the situation
should be eased somewhat when the state kicks off a
second incentive pay plan ˆ open to all public schools
ˆ next year.

State grants in the Texas Educator Excellence Grant
program are targeted at schools with a high percentage
of low-income students. To qualify, schools also have
to earn a performance rating of "exemplary" or
"recognized" ˆ the top two grades in the state's
accountability system ˆ or rank in the top quarter of
schools in math or reading improvements on the state's
standardized test, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge
and Skills.

Each school must develop a plan for distributing the
bonuses, subject to approval by the Texas Education
Agency. Teachers are supposed to be involved in
formulating the plans, which in most schools last year
were based on student performance, teacher
collaboration and teacher initiative.

In the Dallas school district, 90 campuses were
invited into the program this year ˆ 12 more schools
than last year. In all, those schools will receive
about $9.5 million for incentive pay, including
$300,000 for Skyline High School ˆ the largest grant
of any campus in the district.

On the positive side, a survey of teachers in the
program found fairly broad support for performance
incentives in general and for the Texas Educator
Excellence Grant program specifically.

Researchers also said that "many of the reservations
against performance incentives were not realized" in
the Texas program, including critics' predictions that
merit pay would lead to less teacher collaboration and
diminished instruction.

"Most teachers responded favorably to their school's
[grant] program and also indicated generally positive
relations with colleagues and between teachers and
students," the study said.

Mr. Booker of the TEA said school districts are being
encouraged this year to target the money to their
highest performing teachers rather than spreading it
out with small bonuses for a large number of teachers.

Student test scores at the schools were not evaluated
by researchers but will be next year, according to
state officials.

Among other districts in the Dallas area with a large
number of schools that were tapped to participate this
year are Fort Worth (25 schools), Arlington (19),
Richardson (13) and three districts with seven schools
each ˆ Garland, Grand Prairie and Irving. Mesquite has
four schools on the list, and three other districts
have three each ˆ Carrollton-Farmers Branch,
Duncanville and Lewisville.

At Charter School, Higher Teacher Pay

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times
Zeke M. Vanderhoek, creator of a charter school opening in 2009.

This is really an amazing experiment--significantly higher teacher pay for 5th-8th grade teachers—$125,000.00 and performance bonuses. I quote: "The school will open with seven teachers and 120 students, most of them from low-income Hispanic families. At full capacity, it will have 28 teachers and 480 students. It will have no assistant principals, and only one or two social workers. Its classes will have 30 students. In an inversion of the traditional school hierarchy that is raising eyebrows among school administrators, the principal will start off earning just $90,000. In place of a menu of electives to round out the core curriculum, all students will take music and Latin. Period."

This sounds exciting.

-Angela

At Charter School, Higher Teacher Pay


By ELISSA GOOTMAN
Published: March 7, 2008

Would six-figure salaries attract better teachers?

A New York City charter school set to open in 2009 in Washington Heights will
test one of the most fundamental questions in education: Whether significantly
higher pay for teachers is the key to improving schools.
The school, which will run from fifth to eighth grades, is promising to pay
teachers $125,000, plus a potential bonus based on schoolwide performance. That
is nearly twice as much as the average New York City public school teacher
earns, roughly two and a half times the national average teacher salary and
higher than the base salary of all but the most senior teachers in the most
generous districts nationwide.
The school’s creator and first principal, Zeke M. Vanderhoek, contends that high
salaries will lure the best teachers. He says he wants to put into practice the
conclusion reached by a growing body of research: that teacher quality — not
star principals, laptop computers or abundant electives — is the crucial
ingredient for success.
“I would much rather put a phenomenal, great teacher in a field with 30 kids and
nothing else than take the mediocre teacher and give them half the number of
students and give them all the technology in the world,” said Mr. Vanderhoek,
31, a Yale graduate and former middle school teacher who built a test
preparation company that pays its tutors far more than the competition.
In exchange for their high salaries, teachers at the new school, the Equity
Project, will work a longer day and year and assume responsibilities that
usually fall to other staff members, like attendance coordinators and
discipline deans. To make ends meet, the school, which will use only public
money and charter school grants for all but its building, will scrimp
elsewhere.
The school will open with seven teachers and 120 students, most of them from
low-income Hispanic families. At full capacity, it will have 28 teachers and
480 students. It will have no assistant principals, and only one or two social
workers. Its classes will have 30 students. In an inversion of the traditional
school hierarchy that is raising eyebrows among school administrators, the
principal will start off earning just $90,000. In place of a menu of electives
to round out the core curriculum, all students will take music and Latin.
Period.
While the notion of raising teacher pay to attract better candidates may seem
simple, the issue is at the crux of policy debates rippling through school
systems nationwide, over how teachers should be selected, compensated and
judged, and whether teacher quality matters more than, say, class size.
Mr. Vanderhoek’s school, which was approved by the city’s Education Department
and the State Board of Regents, is poised to be one of the country’s most
closely watched educational experiments, one that could pressure the city and
its teachers’ union to rethink the pay for teachers in traditional schools.
“This is an approach that has not been tried in this way in American education,
and it opens up a slew of fascinating opportunities,” said Frederick M. Hess,
director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
“That $125,000 figure could have a catalytic effect.”
Yet the model is raising questions. Will two social workers be enough? Will even
the most skillful teachers be able to handle classes of 30, several students
more than the city average?
“I think they’ll have their hands full,” said Alan B. Krueger, a Princeton
professor who studies the economics of education. “Paying teachers above market
rate for hard-to-staff schools makes sense, don’t get me wrong. The question is,
‘How much do you want to tilt in that direction?’ ”
Michael Thomas Duffy, the city’s executive director for charter schools, said
that even some Education Department staff members were skeptical, wondering,
“If you’re putting all of your resources into teachers in the classroom, are
you shorting some of the other aspects of what a good school requires?”
Mr. Vanderhoek won approval for the school after presenting city and state
officials with a detailed proposal and budget. Mr. Duffy said the school could
have a “tremendous impact” throughout the country. “If the department and the
chancellor didn’t feel that this had a likelihood of success, we wouldn’t have
approved it.”
The school’s students will be selected through a lottery weighted toward
underperforming children and those who live nearby. It has generated so much
buzz with its e-mail blasts and postings on education and employment Web sites
that its voicemail message now implores prospective hires to please, make
inquiries by e-mail.
“People are sort of stunned,” Mr. Vanderhoek said.
Ernest A. Logan, president of the city principals’ union, called the notion of
paying the principal less than the teachers “the craziest thing I’ve ever
heard.”
“It’s nice to have a first violinist, a first tuba, but you’ve got to have
someone who brings them all together,” Mr. Logan said. “If you cheapen the role
of the school leader, you’re going to have anarchy and chaos.”
Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, called the
hefty salaries “a good experiment.” But she said that when teachers were not
unionized, and most charter school teachers are not, their performance can be
hampered by a lack of power in dealing with the principal. “What happens the
first time a teacher says something like, ‘I don’t agree with you?’ ”
Mr. Vanderhoek spent three years teaching at Intermediate School 90 in
Washington Heights through Teach for America, which places recent college
graduates in challenging schools. He started tutoring to supplement his salary
and created a test preparation company called Manhattan GMAT in 2000.
The secret to the company’s success, he said, was to pay tutors $100 an hour as
well as bonuses, compensation that was several times more than other companies
paid.
Mr. Vanderhoek is trying to raise money to lease space in the neighborhood and
build a permanent building. But he has made a strategic decision to cover other
expenses with city, state and federal money, plus a few grants. “We’re saying,
‘Look, we can do it on public funding, and we want to inspire other people to
do it on public funding.’ ”
The school’s teachers will be selected through a rigorous application process
outlined on its Web site, www.tepcharter.org, and run by Mr. Vanderhoek. There
will be telephone and in-person interviews, and applicants will have to submit
multiple forms of evidence attesting to their students’ achievement and their
own prowess; only those scoring at the 90th percentile in the verbal section of
the GRE, GMAT or similar tests need apply. The process will culminate in three
live teaching auditions.
Among those who have applied are a candidate who began teaching in the 1960s,
founded a residential school for troubled adolescents, has a Ph.D in Latin and
is working on a scholarly translation; and a would-be science teacher who has
taught for more than a dozen years at some of the country’s top private
schools.
Claudia Taylor, 29, applied to the Equity Project even though, she said, the
thought of leaving the Harlem Village Academy, the charter school where she
teaches reading, “breaks my heart.”
“I’m tired of making decisions about whether or not I can afford to go to a
movie on a Friday night when I work literally 55 hours a week,” Ms. Taylor
said. “It’s very frustrating. I’m feeling like I either have to leave New York
City or leave teaching, because I don’t want to have a roommate at 30 years
old.”
Ms. Taylor hesitated before applying, because the salary “almost doesn’t seem
real.” Then she thought back on her three years teaching in the traditional
public schools and determined that it could be, saying, “There is definitely a
lot of money that you saw being wasted.”
Mr. Vanderhoek said he planned to be principal for at least four years. After
that, who knows? He could be promoted to teacher.

Mixed results after 1st year of Texas teachers merit pay program

Feb. 29, 2008, 6:31AM

AUSTIN — Texas school districts are paying teachers smaller bonuses than what was recommended by lawmakers, one factor that has led to mixed results in the first year of the nation's largest merit pay plan, according to an independent study funded by the state.

The $100 million Texas Educator Excellence Grant program received a favorable response from teachers in the 1,148 schools where bonuses were awarded, according to the study.

But researchers said they are unsure if the program will prove to be a long-term success, in part because of massive turnover among schools participating in the merit pay program and smaller-than-expected bonuses. Although the Legislature recommended awarding teacher bonuses between $3,000 and $10,000, the average bonus awarded across the state was $2,263.

The study has also produced mixed reactions from supporters and opponents of the merit pay program.

"We think the program is accomplishing what the Legislature intended," said Jerel Booker, the state's director of education initiatives and performance. "One of the primary goals was to retain good teachers in our schools, and at least 70 percent of these teachers said they have a strong desire to participate in the program."

But the merit pay program's detractors, including many teacher associations, said the study proves the program had little effect on teachers. One element of the study indicated that 85 percent of teachers in the program said the bonuses did not change their approach to classroom work.

"What did the $100 million accomplish?" said Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association. "These teachers were already doing a good job."

Although teacher associations generally support pay raises for all teachers in Texas as opposed to merit raises for some, the study indicated that teachers in the program generally supported performance incentives.

"Most teachers responded favorably to their school's program ... ," the study said.

The National Center on Performance Incentives produced the 161-page study under contract from the Texas Education Agency. Researchers were from Vanderbilt University, the University of Missouri and the RAND Corp., a nonprofit think tank.

___

Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com



© 2008 The Associated Press

Texas study finds 39 model high schools in math, science

Together with the previous post, it's clear that teacher quality in math and science teachers is key. The rub is that few math and science graduates become teachers because they have access to other higher paying jobs and careers.

While on the subject, check out the report titled, An American Imperative discussed this week at the National Press Club by the Business Higher Education Forum.

The report recommends more mentoring and preparation time for first-year teachers in order to deal with low teacher retention. A sure-to-be controversial measure is changing licensure standards. Currently, they are based on professional development coursework. A report recommendation is that all states create databases that link teacher quality to student achievement. This needs to be done very carefully because a perverse incentive to NOT teach academically challenged children could ensue.

The report also recommends financial incentives—like scholarships, loan forgiveness programs, bonuses, housing subsidies, and differential teacher pay. Individuals, it is presumed, would find working in high-demand subjects were higher pay attached to this opportunity. Similarly, such incentives could exist for those willing to work in high-poverty schools where shortages are acute.

Hmmm. Experience would take a back seat to different pay scales. How to cope with teacher morale when such differences exist?

I'm glad that this report came out but I hope that it sparks a national debate that is guided by what the research on teacher quality says. Finally, check out this EdWeek article titled, Doubts Cast on Math, Science Teaching Lures by Sean Cavanagh for a critical take on teacher incentive pay. For example, working conditions--woefully understudied, matter, too. Unfortunately, most of the compliance data that states collect is not sensitive to good measurement of teacher quality and so putting the cart (policy) before the horse (evidence) is another likely possibility. I also hope that the needs of English language learners are not an afterthought like they usually are despite their high rate of growth in our public school systems.

-Angela



Texas study finds 39 model high schools in math, science
Common traits include larger class sizes, more certified teachers

09:31 PM CDT on Wednesday, October 31, 2007

By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
tstutz@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – A select group of Texas high schools – including eight in the Dallas area – is chalking up impressive results in math and science by utilizing slightly larger classes and paying teachers in those subjects more money than other teachers, according to a report released Wednesday.

The study by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, examined scores on several major tests – the TAKS, ACT, SAT and Advanced Placement exams – to come up with 39 high schools that have been largely successful in teaching math and science to their students.

Many of the schools have a large percentage of low-income students and enrollments range from rural and small (148 pupils) to urban and very large (4,872 pupils).

Researchers for the foundation, which is influential with state Republican leaders, conducted the study to identify the "best practices" that the high schools have in common so they can be shared with other schools.

Citing lackluster math and science performance in Texas high schools, the report said it is fortunate that "a number of Texas high schools are shining examples of places where students are achieving success in math and science."

Using standardized test and college entrance exam data from the Texas Education Agency, researchers noted that the 39 schools not only scored well in math and science, but also demonstrated "significant gains" over time. A total of 28 campuses were cited for math achievement and 29 for science achievement – including 18 that did well in both subjects.

Jamie Story, lead researcher, said the test score results also were adjusted for student body demographics, percentage of limited English-speaking students and geographic location. One of the "best practice" high schools has a student body that is nearly 85 percent low income.

Two Dallas high schools on the list – Carter and Wilson – have student bodies that are about 55 percent low income. Turner High School in Carrollton, also on the list, is 56 percent low income.

Among the common characteristics of the 39 best practice schools are:

•Class size – all had slightly larger classes in math and science – about 10 percent more students – than the average high school class in those subjects. That translated into an extra two to three students per class.

•Teacher pay – Math and science teachers at best practice schools typically earned about $3,000 a year more than other teachers at their schools. School districts paid those supplements using incentive pay or special stipend programs.

•Teacher certification – all had a high percentage of teachers certified in math and science. Only 3.8 percent of math teachers were teaching out of their field – compared with 14.3 percent statewide – and only 1 percent of science teachers were out of field – compared with 28 percent statewide.

•Spending per student – The best practice schools annually spent an average of $994 per student less than the state average – cited in the study as $7,229. The schools also spent more of their funds on instruction (68.4 percent) than the statewide average (57.8 percent).

•TAKS preparation – time spent preparing for the annual Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills was about half that of the average school in Texas. Best practice schools also targeted TAKS preparation to low-performing students.

The foundation also made a series of recommendations that researchers said can be implemented by school districts under current law. They included greater use of stipends to pay math and science teachers, and new district policies that reduce the amount of class time spent on TAKS preparation.

Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association said the finding that most of the schools have a high percentage of certified math and science teachers may be the most critical of all the best practices cited in the report.

"It all starts with having certified math and science teachers," he said.

Performance-based Pay For Teachers?

Performance-based Pay For Teachers?

Science Daily — Teacher performance pay is a frequently discussed and controversial topic among kindergarten through 12th-grade educators. Recent findings by economics professors at the University of Missouri-Columbia and Vanderbilt University suggest that states and school districts in the United States begin developing programs that examine the effects of linking teacher pay to student achievement.

The study was a collaborative effort between Michael J. Podgursky, professor of economics at Mizzou's College of Arts and Science, and Matthew G. Springer, research assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt's Peabody College. The researchers critiqued previously published studies which evaluated the effectiveness of school district and state-sponsored merit pay systems throughout the United States, as well as programs in Israel, Africa and the United Kingdom. They found that student achievement mostly improved when teachers received financial incentives.

As a result, school districts should at least consider the idea, Podgursky said, by experimenting with performance-based systems, which require flexibility and only become effective through "trial and error."

"We can't say, 'Do this; or this is the right way to do it,'" he said. "However, the preponderance of evidence, when you look at a variety of sources, including the limited number of evaluations and the evidence we have on the variation of teacher effectiveness, suggests that it really is something school districts should be exploring or piloting. Every one of the evaluations has been virtually positive. They all suggest there's a positive response in terms of outcome measures -- including test scores."

Podgursky and Springer's position differs from opponents who argue that unlike sales by a salesman or billable hours for an attorney, teacher performance can't be measured or monitored or, that incentives result in competition and less teamwork by teachers.

Traditionally, teacher pay is based on a salary schedule -- years of experience and education level. Nationwide, there are roughly 3.1 million teachers. Podgursky and Springer said the current salary system increases expenditures without directly impacting student achievement. In the study, he and Springer advocate school districts to emulate private sector employers which "understand that strategic pay policies are a very important lever in raising firm performance." They said in the long run, merit pay systems result in success -- for teachers and students alike.

"The system isn't passive; the evidence certainly suggests when you offer incentives, you're likely to get better results," Podgursky said. "It suggests that the actors do respond to the incentives."

The study, "Teacher Performance Pay: A Review," will be published in the September issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Missouri-Columbia.

Bill to improve math, science teaching loses pay provisions

Friday, March 9, 2007

Bill to improve math, science teaching loses pay provisions
KEA opposed salary differential
By Tom Loftus
tloftus@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- A bill that is a top priority for Senate Republicans -- aimed at improving math and science teaching -- was approved yesterday by a House committee but only after it removed provisions to boost pay for top teachers in those subjects.

The budget committee sent to the House floor a new version of Senate Bill 1. It retains many of the original provisions, including cash incentives to schools to begin advanced-placement courses.

But gone from the bill is language that would authorize pay increases of up to $10,000 a year for the best chemistry, physics and calculus teachers -- an incentive that would be based on scores achieved by their students on advanced-placement tests.

The committee took no action on a second Senate priority bill, which would have raised the salaries of chemistry, physics and calculus teachers who get top scores on teacher-certification tests.

That bill, SB 2, is stuck in the budget committee, which plans no more meetings this session.

Sen. Ken Winters, a Murray Republican and sponsor of the bills, said he hopes SB 2 and the deleted parts of SB 1 can be revived in a conference committee that will reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions.

"Until the conference activities are over, you never give up on anything," Winters said.

Rep. Frank Rasche, a Paducah Democrat who is chairman of the House Education Committee, said the provisions giving additional pay for science and math teachers "had to come out" or the bill couldn't have passed the House.

Those provisions were strongly opposed by the Kentucky Education Association, the state teachers' union.

KEA President Frances Steenbergen said the organization believes salaries should be based on levels of experience, education and professional training "but not on the subject" being taught.

Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, chairman of budget committee, said he supports differential pay for teachers of subjects such as math and science, where the demand is great but the supply short. However, he said House Democratic leaders would not let the bill move without the KEA's support.

Besides providing cash incentives to schools to start advanced-placement classes, the current version of SB 1 also would pay the fees charged students to take advanced-placement tests.

Reporter Tom Loftus can be reached at (502) 875-5136.

Print this article | Go back

99 [HISD] teachers told to repay part of bonus

March 9, 2007, 3:20PM
99 teachers told to repay part of bonus
HISD blames a computer glitch for overpayments

By ERICKA MELLON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Ninety-nine HISD teachers who received performance bonuses are being told this week they have to pay back an average of $745 because the district accidentally overpaid them.

HISD officials said a computer programming error led them to overpay about $73,700. The mistake caused the 99 part-time teachers and other instructional personnel to be paid as though they were full-time employees.

The affected teachers should receive a form from Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra this week giving them the option of having all the money deducted from a single paycheck or spread out over 10 pay periods.

The amounts range from $62.50 to $2,790.

"Although this affects less than 1 percent of HISD's 12,500 teachers, the error should not have been made," HISD spokesman Terry Abbott said in a written statement. "We regret it and apologize to those instructional staff members."

The head of the HISD's largest teachers union, however, is advising her members to keep the money.

"If it's the district's error, then the district should bear the loss," said Gayle Fallon, whose Houston Federation of Teachers represents about 6,500 employees.

"If you tell someone they deserve money and put it in their bank account, you've got a helluva nerve taking it back."

Fallon said she is encouraging teachers not to sign the form authorizing the district to deduct the money from their paycheck. Without the signed form, the district can't take back the money, Fallon said.

"And if they direct them to sign it, we'll see them in court," she added.

Asked to respond to Fallon's comments, Abbott said simply, "The money will need to be returned."

Principals at 52 schools are meeting with employees in person this week to explain and apologize.


Series of missteps for HISD

This is the third time Saavedra has been forced to admit an error since the district doled out $14 million in bonuses in January.
His first apology came after he referred to the teachers who received top bonuses as "the cream of the crop," drawing criticism and angry e-mail from offended employees who didn't get bonuses.

Later, the district realized it overlooked several hundred teachers in the initial payout, so it cut an additional $1 million in checks.

Abbott also said officials have corrected the programming error, and he added that HISD officials remain committed to the incentive pay plan, which seeks to hold individual teachers accountable for how much their students improve each year on standardized tests.

Steve Antley, a Marshall Middle School teacher who serves as president of the Congress of Houston Teachers, called the overpayment mistake "unbelievable."

"It's just another example of how poorly thought out and planned the whole program was, so it's not surprising these kinds of mistakes are being made," said Antley, who did not receive a bonus.

ericka.mellon@chron.com


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4614930.html

Austin delving deeper into performance pay for teachers

Austin delving deeper into performance pay for teachers

Houston educators urge Austin to tread with care; Denver's program a national model.

Click-2-Listen
By Raven L. Hill
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, March 03, 2007

As Austin school district officials craft a new compensation plan for teachers and officials, they are keeping a watchful eye on what worked in other school systems.

And what did not.

Starting in the fall, trustees plan to set aside $4.3 million annually to pay for performance-based bonuses as a way to recruit, retain and reward quality educators. Austin officials want to offer bonuses districtwide in the 2008-09 school year.

Austin is joining districts across the country that are exploring ways to better pay teachers and principals — and finding that more money doesn't always equal a better system.

Most efforts have historically failed for three reasons, experts say: They focused on financial incentives alone, lacked a systemic approach and were punitive in design.

The Austin school district has put discussions of strategic compensation in the broader context of the district's mission to raise student achievement, from providing better opportunities for professional development to more effective supervision and support.

"The efforts that have shown some of the most promise were those that realized you had to make many changes," said William Slotnik, founder and executive director of the Boston-based Community Training and Assistance Center, which is helping Austin with its plan. "You want to have a school system where all the pieces fit together."

In education, raises are often based on seniority or advanced degrees. An Austin teacher with a graduate degree is paid about $800 more on average. Salaries rise $200 with each additional year of experience. Though the district offers stipends in high-demand areas such as bilingual education and special education, it does not provide bonuses for reaching target education goals.

Denver's nationally recognized ProComp plan includes bonuses for teachers and principals who've completed continuing education courses, received satisfactory performance evaluations, met student growth objectives and work in "hard to staff" schools or specialized areas.

Austin started looking at performance pay about three years ago when it established a task force composed of educators, experts and parents. Now, the district sees the initiative as a key part of its efforts to better serve students. Ed Fuller, a University of Texas researcher who served as a facilitator, said the committee's subsequent reports and recommendations helped shore up "a foundation of understanding" about the district's perceived strengths and weaknesses.

"You have to look at the system holistically to make sure this particular policy effort fits in with the other work of the school district," Fuller said.

Austin is currently interviewing about 5,600 teachers and 400 campus administrators to see what they think of the idea.

The compensation initiative is being guided by a task force and steering committee of teachers, principals, and community and business representatives. The plan is to start paying performance bonuses at pilot schools in 2007-08 and expand to all schools the following year.

Jim Harrington, a former elementary school teacher and task force member who retired after 17 years in Austin schools, said he's encouraged that teachers will be better served in the future.

"The traditional pay system worked real well in the old traditional school system," Harrington said. "It's given me hope that we're moving toward more student achievement and teachers being adequately compensated."

Austin's measured approach is markedly different from that taken by Houston school district officials, whose $14 million performance pay plan tied teacher bonuses to student progress on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, the national Stanford 10 exam and the Spanish-equivalent Aprenda.

When the first round of bonus checks went out earlier this year, many of Houston's more than 15,000 teachers were furious, especially after the bonuses were made public.

They didn't understand how a school's Teacher of the Year wouldn't receive a bonus check or why teachers in subject areas such as reading, math or science wouldn't get the largest checks.

"We had teachers screaming at each other when the bonuses came out," said Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. "We had one who walked off the job. What I would suggest to the Austin teachers and (Superintendent) Pat Forgione: Don't copy the Houston plan or your teachers will hate you."

Austin has laid the right groundwork, said Louis Malfaro, president of Education Austin, which represents more than 4,000 teachers and staff.

"In Houston, this was done to the teachers, not done with them, and done over their objections," Malfaro said. "Here in Austin, we have an opportunity to test some things, both to understand what teachers' goals and aspirations are, but also their fears and misgivings. When you're talking about people's pay, it's a politically charged area."

Austin officials plan to seek additional money for the bonuses from state and federal sources. Blackshear and Oak Springs elementaries and 20 other Austin campuses received state funds for incentive plans. Blackshear and Oak Springs devised plans that rewarded teachers based on passing rates, leadership and professionalism among other areas.

rhill@statesman.com; 445-3620

The Denver plan

•Teachers get bonuses of $342 to $3,070 depending on nine variables that include earning graduate degrees and professional development credits, satisfactory performance evaluations and student performance on the state achievement test.

•The $25 million plan was approved by voters in November 2005. Current teachers had seven years to decide whether to participate. Those hired after January 2006 were automatically enrolled.

•About 1,700 of more than 4,000 staff members had joined the plan by November.

The Houston plan

•Teachers can earn up to $7,000 in bonus pay based on student performance on standardized tests.

•The plan's goal was to focus on growth in student learning and make incentives more 'financially meaningful' to teachers.

•Started in January, the plan was roundly criticized by the Houston Federation of Teachers for being divisive and confusing.

Sources: Denver and Houston school districts, media reports



Find this article at: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/03/3performancepay.html