New York City Teachers Agree to Performance Pay, And I Have a Problem With It

This week, teachers at 205 New York City public schools--86% of those eligible--signed on to participate in a performance-incentive bonus program that is largely based on meeting benchmarks for standardized test scores. I understand teachers' willingness to buy into a deal that can put an additional $3,000 in their paychecks. However, this program defines success as ratcheting up test scores, and that is a huge problem.

High-stakes standardized testing rarely gets questioned anymore for its legitimacy as a lens for school accountability and student achievement. Its proponents are so powerful and its propaganda machine is so well-oiled (if you're against it, you espouse "the soft bigotry of low expectations") that its tentacles now reach into virtually every public school classroom in America.

The culture of measuring students and school solely via high-stakes testing distorts curriculum, demoralizes students, and provides incomplete, inaccurate assessments. The current testing regime's fallout is massive and ugly. The fear-inspiring culture of test prep makes kids associate school with tests, not to developing their minds.

And -- this is a serious point -- high-stakes testing devalues the joy of the learning process.

This accountability regime is the education lovechild of business sphere interests; it's numbers-driven and mechanistic. The ends are all that matter. Forget the means. (No one wants to say it, but this model tacitly encourages manipulation and cheating.) It sends to principals, teachers, parents, and students a loud, clear, and dangerous message: if you get the stats, you're successful.

I wish children could be assessed based on their actual work over the school year, and not by one week of pressure-laden testing. The only good argument against that kind of comprehensive, student-centered assessment is that one can't trust teachers to instill enough rigor in their assignments, a thoroughly cynical message.

However, there's the world I'd like to live in, and there's the world there we have. When I criticize the institution of high-stakes testing, I might as well be shouting -- like many others -- that we should get out of Iraq now. It's just not going to happen while the keepers of power and high offices want to press forward. (I'm still going to shout, though. Someone is listening.)

This concession -- that high-stakes testing is a given reality -- is reflected in this week's performance pay deal in New York. Both the teachers' union and City Hall declared victory on the compromise, since the merit bonuses will go to entire schools that meet benchmarks, and not to individual teachers. The union says this will encourage cooperation between teachers and administrators -- and that's true. But the teachers and principals will be cooperating toward the common goal of pumping up standardized test scores, a mistaken aim if one truly wants to educate children. The United Federation of Teachers has accomplished a tremendous amount to support teachers and students, but I have a philosophical disagreement with them on this issue.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein, two men who made their bones in the business sector, have scored a win in advancing their agenda.

Most of the Democrat presidential candidates -- except Senator Obama -- have spoken out against teacher merit pay, an increasingly hot-button issue. With the controversial reauthorization of No Child Left Behind coming up next year, the issue will be getting a lot more ink, and this week's New York compromise will be in the spotlight.

Excellence should be rewarded, but test scores don't measure a teacher's excellence. The scores (how many kids barely eke over that minimum proficiency hump? how many fall short?) measure one's ability to play a specific game. The rules of this multiple-choice game are not transferable to the greater world. Such a depersonalized system should not rule education, a wholly human institution.

Bonus pay is a good idea to entice master teachers to work in difficult schools, to mentor neophyte teachers, or to take on extra responsibilities like an after-school club. However, it's a cancer when it abets the mislaid obsession with cranking empty statistics out of unwitting children.

Dan Brown is the author of the new teacher memoir, The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle. Happy holidays.

Follow Dan Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danbrownteacher

Comments

[MrWashy]

Dan,
Thanks for the fantastic post. Unfortunately for those of us in the teaching profession, I think we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the future. The bottom line business model just does not work in education; however there are too many people who feel that there is a magical panacea that will cure education of its ills. Those people should spend a year in the classroom finding out exactly what the profession is before passing judgment or ill conceived legislation. There is no business model for education, nor is there a bottom line. There are kids, and all the facets they bring with them.

[realitytrumpsbull]

I have an idea, program Asimo as robo-teach.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto...drop a bunch of
Oingo Boingo or some punk ska stuff in there
on the ol' hard drive, too, and have him
teach the kids how to dance...it's science,
AND it's fun! If you ever DID read Asimov,
Robots of Dawn and such, well, my prediction
is that the 21st century is going to be a
TRIP. Hold onto your cell-phones, kids, this
is going to be a wild ride...

[YankeeCanuck]

Thanks for an insightful post. Incentive pay as you outlined it, is unrealistic and based on unfair testing. Performance over the year is more important than standardized test scores. This is why some inner city charter schools could not renew their licenses, even though the children were beginning to learn and make progress for the first time in their lives. NCLB is a disgrace.Great that there are voices like yours to take up Jonathan Kozol's torch -- he wrote "Death at an Early Age" 40 years ago, about the deplorable conditions in inner city schools.

Here are a few ways Joe Biden's education policy would give teachers incentives. For starters, they would be paid in line with other professions that require that much education. Teachers who would make a committment to an inner city school would receive a bonus. Teachers who wanted to work toward additional education degrees would receive financial support to continue their studies.There would be two-year pre-school programs available to all children to make them more school-ready.

As it is, commitment and dedication are not rewarded. Education is the cornerstone-- and it's cheaper than building jails.

[ecclesias]

What a great article! You hit all the points that bother me. I was in business for 30 years but the for past 5 years I have been a middle school teacher. I can see the flaws of the business model destroying real teaching. In business figures are regularly manipulated to make the business look good. You can put your energy into how the figures look, or you can put your energy into taking care of what needs to be done day to day. Does that child need extra help? Uh oh! I have a test and I know what's probably going to be on it so I can't give the other kids a journal entry (which makes them think things through but can't be measured well) while I help the one kid because I have to get through a certain amount of information by a certain date.

Also, as a girl, I remember having awful periods. What if the test were on the day I felt lousey? Is that a measurement of what I know and how well the teacher is teaching? What if your parents had a fight the night before? How do we take these things into consideration on testing? A teacher knows these things and can help a child through them - especially if not pressured all the time to live up to statistical equations.

I deliberately dedicate all my energy into actually teaching the kids - making sure they all understand the information so they can enjoy learning. I don't want my energy to go into worrying about whether or not I am going to meet certain standards which can NEVER touch the intangibles. The joy of a child who has been struggling and "gets" it - maybe this won't show on the test because they are behind but it shows in their eyes. How do we measure that? Will I last in teaching? Let the chips of the tests fall where they may - I know I have done what's best for the kids.

[dchavern]

There has to be accountability somewhere. If you don't like incentive pay then, ok, what alternative do you suggest?

Bottom line -- our schools are failing. They are not praparing kids for success in our future economy. News flash: kids who aren't proficient in English and math are generally not going to have economically stable lives. How do we address that? Do we just let them sink - and hire kids from other countries who do have skills?

The simplistic answer is usally to shout "More Money and No Accountability." Ok -- we probably do need some more money, but many schools (see DC public schools, for example) have high per pupil spending without any results. It also isn't apparent that we underspend compared to successful school systems overseas. Where are the levers to address our issues, because we are leaving lots of kids by the economic roadside every day.

[ProgressivePal]

Amen to this post! High stakes, one-size-fits-all testing as the sole measure of learning and achievement is insane. And it's unfair to special needs kids who might otherwise have a shot at a diploma, including students with learning disorders such as dyslexia (affecting reading/spelling) or dyscalculia (math).

Thanks for calling out the propaganda machine and its oppressive scare tactics: terms like "soft bigotry of low expectations," or "lack of rigor," or -- god forbid -- "failing to compete in the world economy." That last one is a heavy burden for 11th graders to carry on their shoulders.

Turn education back over to true educators. Rescind NCLB.

[JustAnotherJoe]

Dan,

I have a problem with incentive pay as well. Can you imagine any other profession subject to a performance pay system like this? Would doctors stand for being paid by the number of illnesses they cure? If so, what incentive would there be to take on the most challenging cases? If the system we used in public schools were to apply to medicine, most doctors would become genral practioners rather than specialists like oncologists. Exactly upside down. The most challenging students need the best teachers. Test scores could play a role in getting teachers a specialist type of certification.

[Dem02020]

This is a great essay.
It's hard to make the case against "test-based appraisal" or "standardized testing", not because those things have any value to us, but because we are so conditioned and so accustomed to relying on those things, when it comes time to decide if we have adequately taught, and they have sufficiently learned.

It's a harder decision to make, than simply answering true or false, or making a multiple choice, or even filling in a blank...

The question is difficult enough (and it's answer important), that it may at least require the language skills of more than T or F or a) or b) or c) or d) none of the above...

More language skills certainly, than are found in writing out a single word (such as MONEY).

The appraisal of whether or not we have taught and they have learned, should be based at least on the ability to compose a complete sentence, and at best on the ability to string together some number of such complete sentences, into an essay of sorts.


Those are a better gauge of learning, the complete sentence and the essay... they are a better demonstration of knowledge or wisdom or whatever you'd call it, than are the T and the F or d) none of the above, or the single word (like MONEY).


So NYC teachers have collectively bargained for a (maybe) $3k bump in pay?
Wow, that's about a dollar and fifty cents per hour!
And all they had to do was officially endorse "test-based appraisal" or "standardized testing", to get that $1.50 per hour (maybe) bump?


The test is a lazy man's and lazy parent's and lazy teacher's and lazy admistrator's method, of measuring whether or not they have learned, and we have taught.

The complete sentence (and the thought it expresses) are better...


The essay is greatest.

[desmirl]

I thought the only town in America where all the childdren are above average was just a Prairie Home Companion / NPR fiction. The testing companies and the politicians have forgotten about the thing callled a 'normal curve' and that human behavior on almost any measurement falls along that 'normal curve'. But, that in mind, I'm sure the children in the New York schools will all wind up 'above average'.