Earlier today, New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney made headlines when announcing that he could support merit pay for teachers. Unfortunately, his favored style reform has failed in the past and should not be supported by education reformers.
Sweeney said today he can support merit pay, if the merit is determined
based on a school's success, not an individual teacher's performance.
This would leave the troubles merit pay seeks to address untouched. A
teacher among the very best in their profession in classroom 2A would be
on the exact same pay scale as their below average colleague in room
2B.
If this story sounds familiar, that is because it is. This summer, New York City discontinued its merit pay system because the program failed to change teacher behavior or improve overall outcomes while costing $56 million. When the New York Times was trumpeting this as a failure of merit pay, Ben Boychuk was pointing out on Public Sector Inc. that this was not merit pay at all. It contained the same fatal flaw as the theoretical program the Senate President could support.
The RAND corporation found that in New York, "[T]he program had no positive effects on student achievement at any grade level. Researcher analysis of student achievement on the state's accountability tests found no positive effects overall for students attending elementary, middle or K-8 schools in years one through three, and for high schools students during the first two years of the program."
There is no reason to expect outcomes to be different on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. A merit pay system that does not actually reward individual teachers is likely to add cost and produce minimal results, except as a weapon to be used against education reformers in the future. After November 8, when all 120 legislative seats in the Garden State are up for election, the legislature will reconvene for a Jersey tradition known as the "lame duck session". It is during this time, when retiring or defeated legislators can have a profound effect on policy, that a false merit pay proposal may be considered.
It should not be viewed as a small step in the right direction, but as a setup for failure that will haunt reformers in search of meaningful change.
If this story sounds familiar, that is because it is. This summer, New York City discontinued its merit pay system because the program failed to change teacher behavior or improve overall outcomes while costing $56 million. When the New York Times was trumpeting this as a failure of merit pay, Ben Boychuk was pointing out on Public Sector Inc. that this was not merit pay at all. It contained the same fatal flaw as the theoretical program the Senate President could support.
The RAND corporation found that in New York, "[T]he program had no positive effects on student achievement at any grade level. Researcher analysis of student achievement on the state's accountability tests found no positive effects overall for students attending elementary, middle or K-8 schools in years one through three, and for high schools students during the first two years of the program."
There is no reason to expect outcomes to be different on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. A merit pay system that does not actually reward individual teachers is likely to add cost and produce minimal results, except as a weapon to be used against education reformers in the future. After November 8, when all 120 legislative seats in the Garden State are up for election, the legislature will reconvene for a Jersey tradition known as the "lame duck session". It is during this time, when retiring or defeated legislators can have a profound effect on policy, that a false merit pay proposal may be considered.
It should not be viewed as a small step in the right direction, but as a setup for failure that will haunt reformers in search of meaningful change.
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