1. Performance Based Pay: Good or Bad
Jean Benson, Maria Ekeren, Robert Flint & Danelle Keninger

2. Origins of Merit Pay Was born in England around 1710
Teacher salaries were based on student test scores

3. Merit Pay In America
In 1969, President Nixon championed a plan called performance-contracting
This plan called for teacher pay to be based on student performance
The plan was eventually declared a failure
The mid ’s was the merit pay decade

4. Performance Contracting – Why did it fail?
Failed to produce expected gains
Generated damaging educational practices such as falsifying school records and teaching to the test to boost test scores
Inability of teachers to use innovative teaching strategies

5. Why offer Incentive Pay?
Federal Government is supporting Merit pay by offering grant monies through the US Department of Education teacher incentive fund
Other plans have been approved by voters willing to use tax money to fund initiatives

6. Goals of Merit Pay The goal is to attract high quality teachers
Teachers should be rewarded for the success of their pupils
If students are learning at an above proficient level, their teachers should be rewarded

7. Pros of Merit Pay
Current pay scale encourages prolific course taking amongst teachers, diverting energy away from enhancing teaching practices
Current pay typically provides few incentives for focusing course work on developing the knowledge and skills needed to enhance performance

8. Pros of Merit Pay
Current system discourages promising young teachers from remaining in the teaching force
It takes years of experience and advanced degrees to move up in the pay scale
Raises the bar of professionalism in teaching

9. Pros of Merit Pay
Rewarding quality work is a means to change the paradigm so that the best and the brightest are eager to teach
Principals must have the authority to make hiring and firing decisions
Raising pay levels are key parts of responding to the school-improvement challenge

10. Pros of Merit Pay
Merit pay appears to be working in North Carolina, Dallas and Denver schools

11. Cons to Merit Pay
Teachers are required to take coursework for renewal certification
Standards should be established to award teachers for classes taken in their subject areas

12. Cons to Merit Pay
Even if teachers would like larger salaries, they typically aren’t money-driven
Studies have shown that merit pay doesn’t have a positive effect on teachers’ classroom work, but instead can have a divisive and damaging effect on a school’s teaching community

13. Cons to Merit Pay
Rewarding teachers based on team leadership and mentorship is a form of compensation
Administrative evaluations will be scrutinized by teachers not receiving merit pay
A 2000 Public Agenda survey noted that compensations other than money are “significantly more important to most teachers”

14. There is no “I” in TEAM Display loyalty Be generous
Avoid internal politics
Value interdependence over independence

15. Merit Pay won’t work Schools need to remain a community
Collaborative effort that takes 13 years to complete
All teachers, in all subject areas, are important to students

16. What is “our” ultimate goal?