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What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

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Re: What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

#41
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the whole point of such an experiment would be to generalize it.

Sure, but if the gains in an experiment come from cannibalizing other districts, then it's not a good guide to what will happen when everyone's in the experiment. Do you attract more people to the profession? Or do people get discouraged by seeing variable outcomes they can't predict ahead of time?

Given that we have the whole private sector as benchmark for your questions, I'm pretty sure the outcome would be positive.

Re: What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

#42
post #32

More people need to be encouraged to become teachers - full stop. Its a valid concern that there are some teachers that are not good, and would be weeded out by performance based metrics. However - everyone else at the school knows who the bad teachers are. They're obvious. They're the ones leaving their class unattended. Doing the bare minimum. These people can't be weeded out right now because there's a shortage of…

>>These people can't be weeded out right now because

I thought one of the causes was unions? qv "rubber rooms" etc.

Re: What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

#43

Is this a practical solution in America where taxes are more limited than other nations?

The USA has the largest tax haul of any nation on Earth at $5.5 trillion. That the US government squanders that tax haul is indicative of the corruption, incompetence, and malevolence of the US government’s officials and bureaucrats.

Re: What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

#44
post #5

I saw this discussed on Marginal Revolution today as well. My main question is whether the gains are fundamentally zero-sum, at least in the short term. Some districts implement flexible pay and some don’t, and then the best teachers move to get paid more. And the places that get left behind…? In the long-run, increased pay ought to lead to more high-quality teachers entering the profession. But in the short term, th…

I agree that this sounds like a different kind of voucher/private school resource transfer. Private schools are able to self-select their students and aren't required by law to take ALL students that want to come. This makes it trivial to be both cheaper and show better test results while at the same time removing resources from the students that actually need help.

The problem is that people in power thinking that this is mostly a teacher driven problem. This would be the same approach as saying that a the amount of money a doctor gets paid should be based on how much weight their patient loses (e.g.) Anyone who thinks teaching is so easy should go try it for a month. This kind of approach also misaligns incentives. The fact is we have good teachers and bad teachers, just like every profession. We need to rethink two things for our education system. Is it to just push kids to college or is it to maximize the number of students who can become gainfully employed and self-supporting adults. Then we need to restructure our resources towards that goal, specifically in terms of class size and ability level and extra help. The main change we need to make is to move investment of resources much more towards elementary age where it can have the longest compounding benefit. (Source: I'm from a family of a dozen current and retired public school teachers)

I do agree that if we increase the pay and benefits for ALL teachers, then we'll create incentive to get better quality teachers in the profession and that competition will get better results in the long term.

Re: What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

#45
post #34
post #12

I was a public school teacher that worked in a district that attempted to measure teacher value add. There was limited pay for performance based on that metric. And the district I worked in was majority racial minority and majority living in poverty. "Using the expiration of preexisting collective bargaining agreements as a source of exogenous variation in the timing of changes in pay, I show that the introduction of…

>>and widespread cheating It amazes me that teachers would be so unethical. They seem worse than the general population.

They are the general population, look around. Teaching no longer provides a stable middle class life in most areas. They live paycheck to paycheck, struggle to afford housing, feel crippled by student loan payments, and have little opportunity for advancement.

Re: What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

#46
post #12

I was a public school teacher that worked in a district that attempted to measure teacher value add. There was limited pay for performance based on that metric. And the district I worked in was majority racial minority and majority living in poverty. "Using the expiration of preexisting collective bargaining agreements as a source of exogenous variation in the timing of changes in pay, I show that the introduction of…

What if the standardized tests aren't administered by the teacher? That seems like it would be an easy solution to get around the cheating problem. As for teaching to the test, what's the real downfall of doing that? Colleges use standardized test scores as the biggest or one of the biggest criteria in admission.

The downfall is that in theory the purpose of school is to educate, not merely get people enough points to be admitted to college.

Re: What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

#47
post #2

From Conclusion: > This paper has studied the effects of the introduction of flexible pay for pub- lic school teachers on the composition of the workforce, teachers’ effort, and student achievement. A switch away from seniority-based salary schedules toward pay-for-quality in a subset of Wisconsin school districts resulted in high-quality teachers moving to these FP districts and low-quality teachers either moving to…

> test scores improved

I understand that using test scores makes for easier science, but I grew up with some level of "teach the test" and in my anecdotal experience you turn schools into the dullest cram schools when performance is measured this way. I did fine on tests but I hated it. The only reason I didn't drop out was because I didn't realize I had the agency to do so.

Re: What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My fear as well. Is there a better way to assess teacher quality, especially in challenging student environments?

Don't assess teacher quality. Eliminate poverty by eliminating capitalism, a system that literally depends on it.

> Eliminate poverty by eliminating capitalism, a system that literally depends on it.

Could you give an example of where this has worked?

Re: What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

#49
post #34
post #12

I was a public school teacher that worked in a district that attempted to measure teacher value add. There was limited pay for performance based on that metric. And the district I worked in was majority racial minority and majority living in poverty. "Using the expiration of preexisting collective bargaining agreements as a source of exogenous variation in the timing of changes in pay, I show that the introduction of…

>>and widespread cheating It amazes me that teachers would be so unethical. They seem worse than the general population.

"You get what you measure" is broadly applicable and systems need to accomodate that.

There's nothing about teachers that makes them less ethical than the the average car emissions system engineer KPMG auditor person

Re: What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance

#50
If they want to improve teachers performance - reduce the $hit modern society is making them deal with. They're very under paid.

How would you like to deal with corraling 23'ish hyper nut jobs all at different levels? That you have to be their parents, psychologist, DEI, identity fosterer, special education teachers etc.

Funding in many schools isn't there now for specialists to do these roles.... because teachers wanted to earn more after inflation, so cuts made - more responsibilites to teachers.

So the teachers are having to take on the role of many of society's "dump bucket" of stuff that parents should be taking care of.

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