Michelle Rhee: Merit Pay Key To Attracting Better Teachers

According to Michelle Rhee, the polarizing Washington DC Schools Chancellor who resigned earlier in the month, merit pay is the key to attracting higher-achieving applicants to the teaching profession.

Rhee shared her views on CNN.

WATCH:

Comments

[yurbud]

03:23 AM on 12/24/2010

What are Michelle Rhee's actual credentials to speak as an expert on education or to even have held the administrative positions she has?

Her only qualification seems to be a willingness to parrot the talking points of those on Wall Street who want to privatize public education so they can do to it what they did to our manufacturing jobs, the internet bubble, and the housing market: milk all the profit out of it they can then toss it aside like a used condom.

Those who have screwed up so much of our economy, which is supposed to be their business, have no business telling teachers how to do their jobs.

[Karie Winfree]

02:51 PM on 11/02/2010

I am a teacher and have been for the last 8 years.

Teacher education programs need to be better, credentials for becoming a teacher need to be more stringent and salaries need to increase overall so teachers can earn a living wage.

Merit pay is one of those 'great in theory' ideas, but way too political. We (teachers) work for the kids. We do what we do because we love learning and want to share that love of learning and inspire our students. We have enough pressures (ahem, standardized tests) that take time and attention away from what we really need to be doing-educating and preparing our kids for their future.

[Muttlib]

11:49 PM on 11/01/2010

I have a counterargument for Ms. Rhee. I feel as a teacher that higher pay will only further dilute the teaching pool. The people I work with are strong-willed, dedicated professionals. They work their butts off. They try hard. They work hard. They do their jobs without a lot of fan fair. If you increase wages then you're only going to end up with people that are there for the money and could care less about education. I know it sounds crazy.

I knew full well what I was getting into pay wise when I took this job. There were trade-offs though. If I was going to be paid a pittance then I at least wanted people to appreciate the job I did. Now it seems like we get paid low wages and are always on the defensive. Sorry, you can't have it both ways.

Merit pay systems have been tried here. Do you know what we end up with? A class like mine that is entirely full of kids who don't care, and the veteran teachers who have more sway have a class full of hand-picked perfect kids. The low end teacher will always lose out. Merit pay on its own is a horrible idea. If you can think of a way to implement it fairly then great. Value added scoring rather than traditional "class averages" is one way to look at it. But I need much more space than HuffPo offers to explain.

[1teacher]

12:49 PM on 11/02/2010

And I have a counter-counter argument.

I don't believe in merit pay because I think it ultimately politicizes the school environment. However, I do believe in higher pay for teachers.

Even a fairly robust increase will not attract greed-heads who could still make more doing less in the private sector. It will, however, allow people to teach who currently look at teacher salaries compared with the cost of living, the price of housing and the $$ of raising a family and simply decide the career is impractical.

[Muttlib]

07:29 PM on 11/02/2010

Don't get me wrong. I fully agree with you. Yes, I am all for pay raises. I could sure use one. I just don't think merit pay is the way to do it. I think closing the gap between a first and last year teacher would help keep a lot of good teachers employed.

Part of the problem is that the folks who do are negotiating have been in the business a LONG time. They want all of the money to be for those who are in 20+ years because it directly benefits them. The administrators negotiate for big money for administrators because they think THEY are the most important part. I think just boosting pay for the first few years and making the climb less dramatic would do a lot. A 30th year teacher with a doctorate does fairly well. A first year teacher doesn't even make enough money to live in a place of their own. In my state they are making less than $30,000 a year. I started at $24,000 and couldn't afford even a decent used car. It was pretty bad.

Close the gap some and a lot of the problems of losing young and talented teachers will go away. The problem is that many get discouraged after 1 or 2 years and walk away. Retaining good young teachers shouldn't require merit pay. It should require a reasonable living salary to start with. Not huge money. Just enough to survive!

[Charles Tyler]

06:03 PM on 11/01/2010

Pay alone is never going to get the smartest and brightest into the profession. Schools are never going to pay $500,000 a year, which a person could easily get in the private sector. And I doubt Rhee with her persistent bashing of teachers as being stupid and lazy thus making the profession look even less respectable actually helps future individuals seek employment as teachers.

[1teacher]

12:52 PM on 11/02/2010

As I mentioned above, good pay alone WILL allow good people to teach who currently find the poor pay of the profession a very practical reason to stay away. Of course this varies from state-to-state and district-to-district. I teach in Southern California where it still costs close to half a million dollars to buy a decent house.

[thesciguy]

02:04 PM on 11/01/2010

I think there is a COMMON misconception regarding merit pay.

Merit pay is NOT about improving the performance of any INDIVIDUAL teacher. How could it? Most teachers are motivated by other factors. A teacher at the top of their game will not suddenly get better because there is a new dangling carrot.

Merit pay IS about competition AMONG schools for the best and the brightest. The school that offers the best incentives will be a magnet for teachers that are ALREADY the best. The accomplishments and achievements AMONG schools will improve, not the student achievements WITHIN teachers.

[thesciguy]

01:32 PM on 11/01/2010

I have been teaching for 21 years, so I am very busy. I'll make this brief.

Not all teachers tow the union line on merit pay. There are good teachers, near or at the top of their salary scale that support merit pay, because they are "maxed" out; their annual increase doesn't keep up with the standard cost of living increase. We are losing real money every year.

The first local school to offer merit pay will receive my application for employment immediately, and I wouldn't be the first or only teacher to apply. That school would have their pick of the best and the brightest from every local school. So, let me ask the parent - would you want your local school to offer merit pay?

[mrnormalpants]

05:58 PM on 11/01/2010

Great comment. Plus you are a teacher so you're allowed to comment on these articles--bonus!! The studies of schools that suddenly offered standing teachers merit pay for certain criteria were important but it's not surprising that most showed that it didn't increase outcomes. That's probably better than learning that the teachers weren't trying their hardest all along, though.

[Kimpeach]

10:43 AM on 12/19/2010

The school systems in my state that has merit pay are going broke (too expensive) and money hungry teachers with scandals about cheating on tests. I know several parents who say they just want a teacher that cares and are passionate about teaching their child to the best of their ability. I hope those parents are ready for their local taxes to go up to pay you. Most teachers don't get into the profession to make money---most get into the profession because they have a passion to teach. Why are you in the profession?

[Burt Way]

12:06 AM on 11/01/2010

Teachers unions insist that teachers receive pay increases but not on merit . And also that we have to pay higher salaries to get better results. This leads us to ask an very important question: If a mediocre teacher is earning $30000 a year and we were to increase his salary to $100000, does he now become a great teacher. The answer is no.

[Kimpeach]

10:48 AM on 12/19/2010

Your question is not that simple. Teachers are already the lowest paid profession that requires a degree. Another thing: how will we determine these teachers worth? How does the parents/students part play in this role. Explain this to me: Southern states have no unions and they have the worst educational systems in the country. Another question: when will you express outrage over mediocre bank executives getting bonus? If we do this across the board, I will be all for it! But blaming the teachers for everything wrong with education is just wrong!

[Cassandra77]

05:10 PM on 10/31/2010

From my understanding of the human brain (all my childhood development classes to earn that teaching degree!), a child who has received the proper stimulation within the age ranges of 0-5 will be more academically inclined and successful in the classroom and beyond then other children who show up to kindergarten without it. Learning starts the second kids are born, NOT their first day of school as some would like to think. A parent can do ten times more in five years than the best, most AMAZING teacher could do in 12. We shouls be investing our tax dollars in PRESCHOOLS and quit worrying about merit pay. Teachers are an easy target for a society that does not want to be held accountable for their own children.

[Cassandra77]

05:19 PM on 10/31/2010

Okay, I do know the difference between "then" and "than" I swear. I can't let a typo go! And since I started, shouls=should-the shame!

[Annette Martinez Lorenzo]

12:59 PM on 10/31/2010

Ree is correct. That is all I have to say - she is correct. However correct does not equal change - and that is not correct.

[chgotchr]

12:37 PM on 10/31/2010

It's only a matter of time until Michelle Rhee signs a contract with Fox. Her anti-teacher, anti-union, pro-privatization views of public education would be a perfect fit with the voice of the right-wing in America.

[Ilana Garon]

07:53 PM on 10/30/2010

Michelle Rhee talks as though merit pay is going to reform the "culture of teaching" (which doesn't attract enough high-achievers, as she explains it), and thus produce better results in classrooms. Aside from the inherent shortsightedness in blaming teachers alone for the multifaceted problems of American education (which I post on here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/llana-garon/rhee-and-kleins-manifesto_b_760348.html), Rhee clings to the idea that merit pay is somehow the ONLY way to raise teacher quality.

Some other ideas, that she never to considers: Why not consider instituting more meaningful and useful professional development for teachers? (Teacher professional development is a joke in most systems, run by off-site consultants who are paid through the nose to produce ideas and curricula that are totally infeasible in the classrooms for which they are designed.) Why not institute master's degree programs in education that, instead of being mandatory for entering teaching, could enable highly qualified mid-career teachers to become teacher-mentors, enabling them to help improve their colleagues in ways that are relevant to the schools in which they serve? Why not institute higher starting salary, raises in larger increments for salary step, and higher cap for those 20-year veterans (as successful school districts such as White Plains have done)? And why not create a culture of respect for teachers, rather than lambasting them as a group ad infinitum for the failings of a small percentage of their peers?

[researcher]

02:10 PM on 10/30/2010

please rhee go to wall street they have merit pay there and bonuses.

you dont belong near our children.

pay teachers a good salary and benefits then help them learn how to teach in an environment that is often near chaos.

visit a pre school then the fifth grade class see the damage we are doing to our children in five short years as an american culture.

we know little about leadership, we are failing on all fronts and we are heading straight for third world status. all the indicators are there.

merit pay is a joke at best.

pavlov and skinner and the social darwinists like the repubs love this idea of merit pay.

it is the greatest of the capitalist con's. drucker screwed up on that one his teachings were more than merit pay but americans picked up the easy you can buy it part and left the rest out.

kind of like the christians do with the teachings of jesus.

they meaning most americans think they can buy it. they the capitalists bought congress and reid and obama why not buy education.

[GlennWatson]

03:18 PM on 10/30/2010

Democrats love merit pay just as much if not more.

[maninal]

05:23 PM on 10/30/2010

To assume merit pay is the primary motivator for teachers is simplistic and short sighted. It's a wedge meant to drive through economic separation between teachers. Divide and conquer.

For them to perceive the advantage of defeating the enemy, they must also have their rewards.
Sun Tzu

[Prometeo]

12:22 PM on 10/30/2010

If that is the case then let's apply merit pay to lawyers and politicians. Let's pay them based on their "performance" and see what happens. A lawyers represents his clients and the justice system determines his fate. If the client looses, is it the lawyers fault? A teacher teaches students and students perform based on THEIR willingness to learn the material. Should a teacher be chastised because a group of students doesn't care about what they learn.

[maninal]

05:23 PM on 10/30/2010

Lawyers don't have public money the charter school crowd wants to confiscate.

[Prometeo]

12:08 PM on 10/30/2010

Michelle Rhee doesn't know what teaching is about. A teacher does not make good students. A teacher helps students discover their true potential. Basing pay on merit will only encourage grade inflation. Teachers will be forced to lower their standards of teaching and make their tests easier to pass in order to obtain better grades in their classes and get a pay raise. There is no true learning of achievement in that. Michelle Rhee's ideas are going to cause the degradation of the educational system. Let's stop portraying this woman as an education reformer.

[mrnormalpants]

11:47 AM on 11/01/2010

Right, because the pay would be based on the grades kids get in the classroom. Yikes...

[LAteacher]

10:13 AM on 10/30/2010

Read all of the extensive studies completed. Merit pay does not work, period.

[maninal]

05:25 PM on 10/30/2010

Merit pay like any incentive only works with a % of teachers. True motivation is only possible on a personal level and knowing which motivational device is effective with each teacher. This points out the base failure in the Charter School crowd. In all areas they attempt to apply a one size fits all solution and with children, as with teachers each is individual and particular.

[mrnormalpants]

06:08 PM on 11/01/2010

Not sure I understand the comment but if you suggesting that the "charter school crowd" advocates a one size fits all solution, you might want to read into the whole charter thing a bit more because those schools are anything but one size fits all.

I'd be interested to read some of the studies you are referring to, LAteacher. I've read about some schools that suddenly instituted merit pay and then measured whether their teachers got better results. Thankfully they didn't immediately show gains in achievement (which would have suggested a lack of effort or something similar before the policy). Merit pay did seem to reduce turnover, though.

That's not what she's talking about, though. The main part of it is being able to attract the best and the brightest teachers (as well as the best and the brightest thinking about going into other professions). This is clearly much different from the type of study I mention above, where you take your same teachers and then say, "ok you'll get a bonus if you teach better this year."

If you've found some research into that sort of thing please pass it along.