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Describe How You Think a Merit Based Pay System Would Work

  • bonelizzard
    wkfan;680747 wrote:
    Unfortunately, you would be amazed at the number of people who do not share your viewpoint and believe that the responsibility for their children's education lies completely in the lap of their child's school.
    totally agree. just drop the kiddos off at school and have the teachers raise them.. K-12.
  • wkfan
    Con_Alma;680764 wrote:wkfan That's the problem. The responsibility must be with the parents and child. If it's placed on a school system it will never work, no matter how effective the school system is.

    You cannot educate someone that doesn't themselves hold the responsibility of becoming educated. They have no chips in the game. It doesn't work.
    Completely agree......
  • O-Trap
    Con_Alma;680764 wrote:wkfan That's the problem. The responsibility must be with the parents and child. If it's placed on a school system it will never work, no matter how effective the school system is.

    You cannot educate someone that doesn't themselves hold the responsibility of becoming educated. They have no chips in the game. It doesn't work.

    Bingo. It's exactly the same as the "lead a horse to water" addage.

    I was going over tax stuff earlier this morning, and I got a chuckle about a kid saying he was filing as an independent. I thought to myself, "You know, I bet there are far fewer people who ACT as people who are independent than who CLAIM they are independent.

    You don't think your teachers (or your child's teachers) teach well enough? Then YOU put some effort in. You don't make enough money? Then YOU get another job, or another source of income (as I found many OCers have done). THAT is independence. When you want something changed, you take it on YOURSELF to change it.
  • FatHobbit
    Con_Alma;680764 wrote:wkfan That's the problem. The responsibility must be with the parents and child. If it's placed on a school system it will never work, no matter how effective the school system is.

    You cannot educate someone that doesn't themselves hold the responsibility of becoming educated. They have no chips in the game. It doesn't work.
    O-Trap;680773 wrote:Bingo. It's exactly the same as the "lead a horse to water" addage.

    I was going over tax stuff earlier this morning, and I got a chuckle about a kid saying he was filing as an independent. I thought to myself, "You know, I bet there are far fewer people who ACT as people who are independent than who CLAIM they are independent.

    You don't think your teachers (or your child's teachers) teach well enough? Then YOU put some effort in. You don't make enough money? Then YOU get another job, or another source of income (as I found many OCers have done). THAT is independence. When you want something changed, you take it on YOURSELF to change it.

    I agree with all of that, so how do we measure the job a teacher is doing when so much depends on the effort the students and parents put it? (I think that was the original question.)
  • O-Trap
    FatHobbit;680848 wrote:I agree with all of that, so how do we measure the job a teacher is doing when so much depends on the effort the students and parents put it? (I think that was the original question.)

    I'd say to take the middle third of the classes that the teacher teaches as a gauge (obviously, the classes will not always be divided up so equally, but "even" is probably as close as we could get as a standard). The top third would probably do well in class regardless of the teacher. The bottom third is a crap shoot mix of some who might to well with a good teacher and some who wouldn't do well regardless.

    So, take the BOY to EOY difference of the middle segment of a particular class. It may not be an exact science, but it would likely get you into the right section at the ballpark.
  • FatHobbit
    O-Trap;680856 wrote:I'd say to take the middle third of the classes that the teacher teaches as a gauge (obviously, the classes will not always be divided up so equally, but "even" is probably as close as we could get as a standard). The top third would probably do well in class regardless of the teacher. The bottom third is a crap shoot mix of some who might to well with a good teacher and some who wouldn't do well regardless.

    So, take the BOY to EOY difference of the middle segment of a particular class. It may not be an exact science, but it would likely get you into the right section at the ballpark.

    I don't hate the idea, but if we're going to determine someone's livelihood I think we should have some science to back it up.
  • O-Trap
    FatHobbit;680864 wrote:I don't hate the idea, but if we're going to determine someone's livelihood I think we should have some science to back it up.

    Problem is, sometimes that can't be done, and that applies to millions of people in the private sector already. I was a customer service representative (a non-retail one) at one time. How do you gauge someone's effectiveness as a CSR? Surveys? What if someone asks me to basically give them the house, which I can't do, and they rate me poorly? Or what if someone else's interaction with my organization as a whole plays a role in how he evaluates me as an individual? Is it how quickly I take care of people? What if that results in me not truly taking care of them? Is it how many people I take care of in a day? What if nobody needs help that day?

    You can play out a million scenarios, but the truth is that such a model ... one without hard data-type results for evaluation ... has been working for years in the private sector. Sure, it's certainly EASIER to have hardline goals, tiers, etc. but sometimes, it's just not possible.
  • bonelizzard
    O-Trap;680871 wrote: You can play out a million scenarios, but the truth is that such a model ... one without hard data-type results for evaluation ... has been working for years in the private sector. Sure, it's certainly EASIER to have hardline goals, tiers, etc. but sometimes, it's just not possible.
    yes, and not possible in the Education profession as well. Teachers would no longer team teach to help each other, they would compete with each other for more pay. The kids, our product, would suffer from these actions.
  • FatHobbit
    O-Trap;680871 wrote:Problem is, sometimes that can't be done, and that applies to millions of people in the private sector already. I was a customer service representative (a non-retail one) at one time. How do you gauge someone's effectiveness as a CSR? Surveys? What if someone asks me to basically give them the house, which I can't do, and they rate me poorly? Or what if someone else's interaction with my organization as a whole plays a role in how he evaluates me as an individual? Is it how quickly I take care of people? What if that results in me not truly taking care of them? Is it how many people I take care of in a day? What if nobody needs help that day?
    Where I work they are evaluated on how many calls they take and how long they are on the call. I'm sure it motivates them to get off the phone as fast as possible. Is that what we want for our kids?
    O-Trap;680871 wrote:You can play out a million scenarios, but the truth is that such a model ... one without hard data-type results for evaluation ... has been working for years in the private sector. Sure, it's certainly EASIER to have hardline goals, tiers, etc. but sometimes, it's just not possible.

    I'm not arguing against merit based pay for teachers. I think it's a great idea but I do think it needs a lot of thought put into how it should be implemented and what possible consequences the change could have. (probably by people who are smarter than me and have more experience, but it doesn't hurt to talk about it on the internet.)
  • FatHobbit
    bonelizzard;680881 wrote:yes, and not possible in the Education profession as well. Teachers would no longer team teach to help each other, they would compete with each other for more pay. The kids, our product, would suffer from these actions.

    We have talked about peer review being a part as well. If your fellow teachers had an impact on your raises I imagine that teamwork would not suffer.
  • O-Trap
    bonelizzard;680881 wrote:yes, and not possible in the Education profession as well. Teachers would no longer team teach to help each other, they would compete with each other for more pay. The kids, our product, would suffer from these actions.
    Not true. Many employees in the private sector work together voluntarily, despite "competing" for pay. Do you know why?

    (a) A cooperative person is a valuable asset in the overall running of an organization (which isn't limited to "for profit" organizations, I might add), so it establishes value for both employees in front of the superiors.

    (b) You can often get more accomplished working together than you could combined if you worked separately.

    (c) Tit-for-tat. You group-teach my kids, and I'll help group-teach yours.

    Have you ever worked in the private sector at the professional level? Even in commission-based atmospheres (which are, by nature, the most cut-throat and competitive), the kind of attitude you're describing doesn't happen often, if at all. It is counterproductive, even to the individual, in the long run.
    FatHobbit;680884 wrote:Where I work they are evaluated on how many calls they take and how long they are on the call. I'm sure it motivates them to get off the phone as fast as possible. Is that what we want for our kids?
    What I'm saying is that there are places where such a metric is NOT used, and yet the customer service reps are still employed without issue. I was giving an example.

    I'm sure not all CSRs are without a metric, but the fact that there are those who are, coupled with the fact that they function just fine, lends credence to the fact that it can be done without hardline metrics.
    FatHobbit;680884 wrote:I'm not arguing against merit based pay for teachers. I think it's a great idea but I do think it needs a lot of thought put into how it should be implemented and what possible consequences the change could have. (probably by people who are smarter than me and have more experience, but it doesn't hurt to talk about it on the internet.)
    Oh, I agree. I'm spitballing. I'm sure defeaters could be raised. That's why this would certainly need discussed.
  • fan_from_texas
    bonelizzard;680881 wrote:yes, and not possible in the Education profession as well. Teachers would no longer team teach to help each other, they would compete with each other for more pay. The kids, our product, would suffer from these actions.

    As O-Trap pointed out, that's not a very good argument. That's not how it works in the private sector, and I fail to see why it would be an issue with teachers, either. Do you really think that paying the best teachers more money would result in teachers sabotaging each other? The potential backlash from other teachers--or even fear of losing one's job--or fear of no one assisting you would serve to moderate this. I don't see it as a big issue.

    And I think teachers competing for more pay--that is, to be the best teacher they can possibly be--is GOOD for the "product," not bad for it.

    An interesting article on teacher pay/unionization/etc.:
    In spite of the woeful state of education in many areas of the country, there are still reasons to be encouraged. President Obama outlined one such example in his State of the Union speech last week:
    [INDENT]When President Barack Obama spotlighted a successful school in his State of the Union speech, he picked Bruce Randolph School in Denver.
    “Take a school like Bruce Randolph in Denver,” the president said. “Three years ago, it was rated one of the worst schools in Colorado. Last May, 97 percent of seniors received their diploma.”
    [/INDENT] Wow, that’s an impressive turnaround. How did they go from bad to great? Well, that part of the story ended up on the cutting room floor during the SOTU editing process, for obvious reasons:
    [INDENT]Bruce Randolph was a middle school when it opened in 2002. In 2007, Denver Public Schools gave Bruce Randolph School permission to operate autonomously. It was the first school in the state to be granted autonomy from district and union rules.
    Each teacher then had to reapply for his or her job. A published report said only six teachers remained.
    [/INDENT]
    Take it for what it's worth.

    Right now, we keep spending more and more and getting less and less, which is fairly universally acknowledged. While every other industry in America has increased productivity and results, education has not. Don't we owe it to our kids to be open to making radical changes, even if that results in some discomfort for teachers?
  • bonelizzard
    [QUOTE=O-Trap;680897)
    Have you ever worked in the private sector at the professional level? [/QUOTE]

    No. don't want to, that's why I chose to become a teacher. Have you ever taught in a classroom? Spend a few days in my classroom and then tell me that we're over paid and we have too many benefits.. etc. Then you decide. Oh, not to mention the countless extra hours or extra out of pocket expenses that we all pay and do for our kids.. Oh it's just teaching, they're just teachers.. Our product, your kids...
  • fan_from_texas
    O-Trap;680897 wrote:What I'm saying is that there are places where such a metric is NOT used, and yet the customer service reps are still employed without issue. I was giving an example.

    I'm sure not all CSRs are without a metric, but the fact that there are those who are, coupled with the fact that they function just fine, lends credence to the fact that it can be done without hardline metrics.

    Exactly. Some clients are tougher and more demanding than others. But if year after year, clients say many more negative things to one teacher than they say to someone else, then either (1) the first teacher consistently had such terrible luck drawing students who are worse than other teachers, and this extraordinary string of luck has continued in mathematically impossible ways, or (2) the teacher isn't very good.

    Say a class has 30 students, and on average, 5 of those students are losers and give negative reviews, no matter the teacher. If in year 1, Teacher A has 2 negative reviews and Teacher B has 10 negative reviews, this could be a fluke, and you don't put a ton of stock into it. But if after 10 years, Teacher A has averaged 2 negative reviews and Teacher B has averaged 10 negative reviews--assuming they're both pulling from the same pool of students--then there is a real, discernible difference between them.
  • Gblock
    bone lizzard let it go...if you go back to every teacher salary thread since we were all on jjhuddle....fanfromtex, manhattanbuckeye, and otrap will speak out against teachers and unions and usually take up most of the posts on those threads. no disrespect to any of those guys they are smart great people to discuss things with on this board and great sources of information its just that there is nothing you can say that hasnt been said before or will convince them otherwise on this subject
  • O-Trap
    bonelizzard;680951 wrote:No. don't want to, that's why I chose to become a teacher. Have you ever taught in a classroom? Spend a few days in my classroom and then tell me that we're over paid and we have too many benefits.. etc. Then you decide. Oh, not to mention the countless extra hours or extra out of pocket expenses that we all pay and do for our kids.. Oh it's just teaching, they're just teachers.. Our product, your kids...

    I never said any one teacher was overpaid. I even said some are probably underpaid (if you'd like me to quote myself, I will). I have a wife who is a teacher in the public school system (which I've also said, and can quote).

    However, those teachers ... the ones who work hard to make sure their kids do well and learn as much as possible ... would be the ones BENEFITING from this. They're the ones who will be first in line to receive higher compensation, good benefits, and lots of job security.

    The only teachers that should be afraid of this are the ones who, regardless of the classroom, aren't trying. I talk to my wife every night when she gets home, and not a day goes by that I don't get more and more upset hearing how little some of the teachers seem to care about the kids ... and how I'm still paying for them to be employed when their effort does not deserve to be employed at all.
  • fan_from_texas
    Gblock;680960 wrote:bone lizzard let it go...if you go back to every teacher salary thread since we were all on jjhuddle....fanfromtex, manhattanbuckeye, and otrap will speak out against teachers and unions and usually take up most of the posts on those threads. no disrespect to any of those guys they are smart great people to discuss things with on this board and great sources of information its just that there is nothing you can say that hasnt been said before or will convince them otherwise on this subject

    That's probably true. I think the general consensus among the three posters you named is that teachers make pretty decent money, and that they're generally worth the amount they get paid. But the system as a whole might benefit if we could differentiate pay to pay the good teachers more and the bad teachers less. Doing so would require instituting performance metrics, which are used by virtually every other industry in the US. While there is some uncertainty inherent in evaluating anything, because every other industry has managed to find ways to do this to increase organizational efficacy, the burden is on teachers to argue that they, alone, are unique and cannot be adequately measured or compared in any meaningful sense. (The counterargument to this, of course, is that everyone already knows that some teachers are good and some are bad, and in every school system, there is virtual unanimity on who falls into those categories. If we all know who the good ones are, let's pay them more).

    Edit: I see OTrap beat me to the punch. We both want to pay good teachers more. We don't think teachers, in general, are overpaid. Rewarding good teachers encourages smart people to go into the profession and encourages those in it to work harder. We also want to get rid of underperforming teachers.
  • O-Trap
    Gblock;680960 wrote:... will speak out against teachers and unions ...

    I don't speak out against teachers. That'd be cannibalizing my household income. Wife makes about 50% of the household income as a public school teacher. ;)
  • Gblock
    O-Trap;680966 wrote:I never said any one teacher was overpaid. I even said some are probably underpaid (if you'd like me to quote myself, I will). I have a wife who is a teacher in the public school system (which I've also said, and can quote).

    However, those teachers ... the ones who work hard to make sure their kids do well and learn as much as possible ... would be the ones BENEFITING from this. They're the ones who will be first in line to receive higher compensation, good benefits, and lots of job security.

    The only teachers that should be afraid of this are the ones who, regardless of the classroom, aren't trying. I talk to my wife every night when she gets home, and not a day goes by that I don't get more and more upset hearing how little some of the teachers seem to care about the kids ... and how I'm still paying for them to be employed when their effort does not deserve to be employed at all.

    if this goes down all teachers will suffer and i bet in 15 years you will have a shortage of teachers and most assuredly a shortage of good teachers
  • fan_from_texas
    Gblock;680976 wrote:if this goes down all teachers will suffer and i bet in 15 years you will have a shortage of teachers and most assuredly a shortage of good teachers

    Why do you think that? I'm curious.
  • Gblock
    our union actually supports merit pay....we also want to get rid of bad teachers....if you are a bad teacher at my building you get called out....one guy is faking and injury and taking the rest of the year off using his sick days because he hated it here so much. my guess is he will turn up in another of our schools next year but he is in for a rude awakening. Unions aren't the evil thing that some are making them out to be. im not even a big union guy. ours works with our board and the community for common goals. customer service is our first priority. honestly i think some people are stuck somewhere in 1985-1995 with their thinking of teachers and schools. my guess is you think school hasnt changed much since you were there....well go watch the old version of a star trek movie and then go see avatar in 3-D its that much different you just havent visited and spent a day in your local school probly in 20 years.
  • ernest_t_bass
    fan_from_texas;680978 wrote:Why do you think that? I'm curious.

    If a lawyer made $40,000 per year, and they saw a $300 decrease in their pay, every pay... would you expect there to be a decrease in the # of lawyers? Serious question, not trying to be an ass. That is what I personally could be looking at under this bill. Yes or no, pretty please.

    Let's see if you can actually answer a question with a "yes" or a "no." :D
  • fan_from_texas
    Gblock;680983 wrote:honestly i think some people are stuck somewhere in 1985-1995 with their thinking of teachers and schools. my guess is you think school hasnt changed much since you were there....well go watch the old version of a star trek movie and then go see avatar in 3-D its that much different you just havent visited and spent a day in your local school probly in 20 years.

    I work with Junior Achievement and go in to the public schools here regularly to partner with teachers to teach economics to high school students.
    ernest_t_bass;680986 wrote:If a lawyer made $40,000 per year, and they saw a $300 decrease in their pay, every pay... would you expect there to be a decrease in the # of lawyers?
    No.

    Most starting teachers already do better than most starting lawyers (this is, unfortunately, true), and yet people keep going to law school because they fundamentally have no idea what they're doing. The demand for law school is pretty inelastic for pay issues--these people are already making terrible financial decisions, so making the decision from being a D- to an F probably won't dissuade people.

    But to a normal profession, I think the answer to your question is "Yes," assuming no other factors are involved. My contention is that those are not the only factors involved.
  • Manhattan Buckeye
    "if this goes down all teachers will suffer and i bet in 15 years you will have a shortage of teachers and most assuredly a shortage of good teachers "

    With "real" unemployment close to 20% there isn't much of a shortage in any profession. There are millions of college graduates right now that would beg to take any teaching job.
  • sleeper
    ernest_t_bass;680986 wrote:If a lawyer made $40,000 per year, and they saw a $300 decrease in their pay, every pay... would you expect there to be a decrease in the # of lawyers? Serious question, not trying to be an ass. That is what I personally could be looking at under this bill. Yes or no, pretty please.

    Let's see if you can actually answer a question with a "yes" or a "no." :D

    You make a very good point. If I'm working for a pharmaceutical company, and the demand for my product goes down, and in turn my salary goes down, the government should step in and give me the same wage. Market forces are terrible things, let's make sure we avoid it at all costs.