Washington Post Leadership Roundtable: What's The Best Approach To Teacher Incentives?

Atlanta is in the middle of an educational crisis with allegations and reports of widespread cheating across the district's school teachers. Now the teachers are forced to choose between resigning or being sent home for good. School districts in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Florida -- to name a few -- are now investigating similar allegations in their own communities. New York City just terminated its performance-based teacher bonus program in light of a report that neither teachers nor students perform better when teacher pay is linked to student achievement.

Amid the national melee, The Washington Post has created a digital roundtable of several experts across the country to discuss their views on what the best approaches are to measure and compensate teachers in the U.S. education system.

Here are snippets from the opinions so far, click through to read their full pieces on The Washington Post.

Want to stop teachers from cheating? A history lesson from corporate America
"I don't think that teachers are cheating this way (by themselves changing answers, or by allowing students to cheat) simply to increase their salaries. After all, if they were truly performing a cost-benefit analysis, they would probably choose another profession--one where the returns for cheating were much higher."
-- Dan Ariely, Duke University behavioral economics professor

Despite cheating scandals, testing and teaching are not at odds
"To be sure, there are lessons to be learned from these jarring incidents, but the existence of cheating says nothing about the merits of testing. Instead, cheating reflects a willingness to lie at children's expense to avoid accountability--an approach I reject entirely. It is also an approach rejected by the vast majority of educators, who would never participate in or excuse cheating."
-- Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education

To improve U.S. education, it's time to treat teachers as professionals
"Teachers should be regarded as and behave like professionals. A professional is a certified expert who is afforded prestige and autonomy in return for performing at a high level, which includes making complex and disinterested judgments under conditions of uncertainty. Professionals deserve to live comfortably, but they do not enter the ranks of a profession in order obtain wealth or power; they do it out of a calling to serve."
-- Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education professor

Teacher cheating, student testing and the great education tradeoff
"The right reaction to the cheating scandals in Atlanta, Washington and elsewhere isn't to declare testing a failure. It is to string up, metaphorically, the worst offenders as a lesson to anyone else who wants to give it a try. It is to spend the money on software and investigations to create a very credible threat that if you do this you'll get caught. And it is to reaffirm, absolutely, our commitment to accountability in education and continuous improvement in the ways we measure success of students, teachers and principals."
-- Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post columnist

Comments

[wca16]

05:17 PM on 07/21/2011

The best incentive is the joy of teaching. The rules, regulations, constant micro management, etc... Is what ruins that. Loosening the slack on the leash would motivate teachers and allow them to spend more time with the children. Also standards on becoming a teacher need to be raised along with pay, which would increase the demand for the position. As like every other job you usually get what you pay for. (P.S. taking away benefits is not making them want to perform.) We also need wean the system off of alternate route teachers.

None of this is feasible in the near future but it is definitely possible if we start making strides in the right direction.

[gutenmorgen]

04:37 PM on 07/21/2011

The photo that is attached to this writing illustrates better than words the total idiocy of this style of teaching. Seven students raise their hands. Only one will be chosen by teacher to either answer her question or to ask her a question. Student number eight has already given up. No wonder that the so-called attention deficit is rampant. Furthermore, this system promotes "brown-nosing". My solution is to invert the relationship. Teachers should ask attention from students only very rarely during class ever. Students have the privilege to ask teacher's attention at any time. No, not all simultaneously but one at a time. How? By standing in line at teacher's desk or even better placing a "help card" visibly on their own desks.

[Mr Anonymous]

11:34 PM on 07/21/2011

That sounds like you described a teacher that doesn't care about teaching, not one that is motivated and gets the entire class involved in the lessons.

[giono]

02:59 PM on 07/20/2011

Can we all just agree that Arne Duncan is a ................... (take you pick), but should not be Sec. of Education ....

[MDCA]

12:58 PM on 07/20/2011

The best incentive is showing respect for the profession. America is one of countries where parents' responsibility is never mentioned, or factored into the equation of student success. More and more the pressure of student success is shifted to teachers. For example, Los Angeles Unified School District recently adopted a policy that teachers may not assign any more than 10% of a student's subject mark to homework. One of the reasons was that parents are unable to help their children with school work. Another was the need for many teenagers to work after school, and that they do not have to do homework. Social promotion is another downer. All the way to 9th grade, students are generally passed on even if they have failed every single subject in their grade. Teachers then end up with students who have not mastered the state standards necessary to be successful in their current grade, creating a losing battle to educate such students. Let's hold parents responsible somehow.

[onionboy]

05:13 PM on 07/20/2011

And as I've said before (and as a parent), PARENTS are responsible for educating their kids...not schools...not teachers. A teacher has a kid a year, a school a few years. Parents have the kids their whole lives, all year round, and for more hours in the day than schools do. And it's parents that have to live with the outcome of a good or lousy education. Schools don't. Once a kid is gone, it's not their problem.

Schools and teachers can be amazing tools to help parents teach their children. But that's their role. They do not and should not have the responsibility for educating kids. Teachers are human being too. They have their own kids their responsible for.

[MDCA]

11:37 AM on 07/21/2011

Thank you for your wonderful response.

[umbrarchist]

12:51 PM on 07/20/2011

Give the children educational debit cards. Separate the testing from the teachers. Give the students a minimum schedule for passing tests. Let the students select the teachers that teach best and have the students pay with their debit cards. So if each student pays $5 per class and a teacher gets 20 students that is $100 per class. The bad teacher won't get students.

Having the testing separated from the teachers means the students can't pay for grades. If a student can learn from the books and pass the tests without going to teachers then they can keep the money at the end of the semester. Students could advance at the rate they pass the tests rather than moving in lock step with other kids.

The tests could be given and scored entirely by computers.

[Ganapati Edu]

06:53 PM on 07/20/2011

Because computers never make mistakes when grading tests, and all children make the best choices with regard to their future.

[umbrarchist]

09:47 PM on 07/21/2011

Have I fallen into the chasm of Sar again.

If the system is working so great now why are there so many complaints?

Why haven't educators made accounting mandatory for decades and yet almost everybody got 4 years of English in high school. What good was that.

You think children can't tell when a teacher is good at helping them understand something and when they are not?

[wca16]

05:20 PM on 07/21/2011

Intriguing idea; but I, and I'm sure you did, usually liked the easiest teacher.

[umbrarchist]

09:50 PM on 07/21/2011

I said separate the testing from the teacher. What good is an easy teacher then?

Sorry, but math and science were easy to me. English was just boring so I only got B's. A's were not worth the time and effort.

[Gayle Boesky]

12:29 PM on 07/20/2011

In my world, the teachers would be the highest paid people employed by a school district. Who has more effect on the students, the teachers who work with them every day or the superintendent who sits in his/her office all day and never interacts with the students? Think about what superintendents do. They implement curricula which are mandate by the State and federal governments. Since education is funded by taxes the superintendent has no responsibility for raising money. We do things backward in the U.S. The only thing super about superintendents is that they are superfluous.

When a teacher is good, they are encouraged to leave the classroom to become administrators, which is deemed to be a promotion because administrators are paid more and are less subject to being laid-off. Think of other professions. Who gets paid more the actors or the behind the scenes people, the star ballplayer or the manager? As long as teachers are paid like second class citizens vis-à-vis the administrators, good, talented people will choose other professions or if they choose teaching, they will leave the classroom as soon as they can.

[heymjo]

12:23 PM on 07/20/2011

Administrators should be teachers first and should never be allowed to become an administrator until they have spent a minimum of 7-10 years in the classroom so they have a through understanding of what it is like to be in the classroom on a daily basis and see the changing face of education and the students in the system. I once had a terrible principal who spent all of 3 years int eh classroom before getting into administration. She had no real understanding of what we go through on a daily basis. You also have to wonder why someone who wanted to be a teacher got out so fast. Further, every administrator should be REQUIRED to teach one class a day of average students (not the honors classes) to be in the classroom and have first-hand knowledge of what it's like being on the front lines. I think these two suggestions would greatly improve the quality of adminstrators who affect our daily lives and evaluations as teachers.

[heymjo]

12:09 PM on 07/20/2011

One more thing, make sure there are educators on the committees in state capitals so when education laws are created, these no nothing politicians can be made aware of the effect of the laws they pass.

[heymjo]

12:05 PM on 07/20/2011

If you want to provide for better teaching, the answer lies in solving the poverty problem, creating an atmosphere in our society where education is a value, not just a means to an end, have smaller classes, more resources, trust your teachers with greater autonomy, get rid of standardized testing (or make the tests count for the students who take them) and the financial "strings" for districts at the end of the tests, and better train your administrators and ensure that they support their teachers and not make it an adversarial relationship. That would b e a good start.

[ironicisntit]

12:42 PM on 07/20/2011

You are 100% correct. We are looking at a socioeconomic problem. Anyone who has seen poverty and worked with these families first hand knows that it permeates every aspect of their lives. If you want to "fix" failing schools, you need to fix the failing communities that surround them.

[TFT]

03:13 PM on 07/20/2011

Nice to see someone who gets it!

[heymjo]

12:01 PM on 07/20/2011

When you dangle money at the end of a stick in times of economic crises, as the Feds have done to school districts with their testing and demands for yearly improvement, you create an atmosphere that encourages cheating. When you use these tests that are designed to measure STUDENT achievement as a tool to unfairly and unreasonably measure effective teaching, you create an atmosphere for cheating. When you weaken the union or have no union to provide little or no protection for teachers against unreasonable administrators who pressure you into changing answers so their school can look good, you create an atmosphere to encourage cheating. When you have an economy that is in the toilet and jobs just aren't there, when schools are looking to cut costs and hire the least experienced teachers so quitting and finding a new job is near impossible, you create an atmosphere for cheating.

[am10]

11:09 AM on 07/20/2011

I think teachers know why they want to teach. How about kids getting the incentive that education and learning will take you far? How about parents getting the incentive that a well educated child won't be a drain on society and will be living independently when they are adults?

[bldgtchr]

10:45 AM on 07/20/2011

you get what you pay for in this capitalistic society. You want quality teachers? you pay them, you give them the respect they deserve and you stop blaming them for every social ill contrived by self serving politicians and administrators.
The attitude that everyone else knows what is best for students besides teachers is garbage. Rhea and the like need to go back to the hole they came from. They are the problem.
Parents...get it together. Start parenting your kids. take responsibility for your sex act.

[gcymru5491]

10:16 AM on 07/20/2011

"Teachers are professionals...." Mouth honor! Just step into the factories that teachers have to teach in. Witness the abuse that they must endure on a daily basis. Trail after them as they head to their evening courses as they pursue advanced degrees. And feel free to complain about their salaries and bennies. And then engage in hypocrisy by addressing them as "professionals.' If you don't treat them as professionals....

[Lilmiss3]

06:19 AM on 07/20/2011

My state eliminated tenure, but with NCLB and the requirements of being "highly qualified," the problem still exists that lousy teachers (hell, lousy HUMAN BEINGS) are in the classroom, and they won't be fired, and they KNOW they won't be fired, 'cuz they're "good on paper".... they have the credentials that are needed. There's also the time-worn mentality of school districts to show a "loyalty to those dedicated to the profession" which keeps burnt-out and just plain lousy teachers in the classroom. Hence, you have the tradition across every school district in every state of the "Dance of the Lemons" or "Pass of the Trash" - where administrators trade one lousy teacher for another. Out of (parents') sight, out of mind, but they still have a warm body with the right "credentials" in the classroom.

[eceresa]

08:42 AM on 07/20/2011

Tenure is an impediment to firing good teachers, not bad ones. If your state government eliminated it, they've got a poor understanding of how education works. And if you think the most experienced teachers are usually the worst ones, as you seem to, then you'd probably fit right in at the state legislature.

[heymjo]

12:12 PM on 07/20/2011

I keep hearing this tired old saw about lazy and incompetent teachers and tenure is an impediment to getting rid of them. Can someone please quantify for me what percentage of teachers you think are lazy or incompetent? Can you then tell me why you think administrators aren't doing THEIR job and documenting the incompetence and bringing them up on charges. Isn't that the job of the administrator?

[jandshosh]

01:18 AM on 07/20/2011

The only time people cheat is when they are scared of the rammifications, just like when people lie. It comes from fear and uncertainty of themselves. Is this the kind of environment we want to create for teachers? Because what effects teachers will effect their students as well. That creates a hostile learning environment which is not going to benefit anyone. Assessing teachers and students is important. I suggest we use an audit system, like the IRS does which randomly seleccts schools and teahchers. They can look at lesson plans, student work, test scores, and work with schools and teachers to improve students performance. Since anyone or any school can be selected then it should be enough to keep teachers on their toes without subjecting students to standardized tests which create an environment of fear.