What happens when we pay public high school teachers based on performance • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by jackcosgrove » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 1:33 PM UTC

setgree wrote: 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…

> this scheme seems likely to redistribute talent in ways that reinforce existing patterns of inequality

Only if school districts that implement flexible pay are also those with higher SES indicators. Which could very well be the case, although the study did try to control for these factors.

I do agree that unless you increase teacher pay vis-a-vis other professions, the effect will mostly be to rob Peter to pay Paul.

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

#52

Post by dmix » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 1:33 PM UTC

ufo wrote: post #46

brodouevencode wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The schools are free to design their own pay packages right? The state isn't mandating that pay be tied to tests. This is mostly just an assumption that that would be the only metric used.

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

#53

Post by driscoll42 » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 1:33 PM UTC

readyman wrote: post #31

azinman2 wrote: post #18

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.

Even in a non-capitalist society, you still need high quality teachers and ideally some way to measure them. And it's not like eliminating capitalism in any way would prove to end poverty.

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

#54

Post by waveBidder » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

readyman wrote: post #31

azinman2 wrote: post #18

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.

if all you have is a hammer…

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

#55

Post by fnordpiglet » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

dacryn wrote: post #10

setgree wrote: 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…

good performance and putting in extra effort should be rewarded over those who just do their job at the minimum effort levels. That's a fundamental problem with teacher pay, there are no bonusses, there are hardly incentives or room for raises. It's all just tenure based. Once you're in, you're in.

Does standardized test score outcomes measure this behavior or does it favor teachers who teach test taking and have less challenging demographics in their classroom?

Performance based pay in professions whose performance is difficult to measure directly leads to bizarre outcomes. I’m not disagreeing in general but I’ve seen this again and again in my career, and I spent a long time on Wall Street where bonuses -really- matter. That extreme brought out the extremes in how incentive pay distorts behaviors in unexpected and undesirable ways, which gets worse the further you get from a directly measurable outcome like PNL.

As a parallel example, hospitals who specialize in extremely difficult diseases with high fatality rates generally have abysmal patient outcome metrics over hospitals that punt anything complex to a specialty hospital. This plays out in policy spaces punishing the speciality hospitals despite the fact they are well known to be top of the industry in terms of performance and “extra effort.” Nominally though they should be shut down by all metrics.

This absolutely plays out in education. Not every classroom or school or district is equivalent in terms of the challenges they deal with. A teacher with a very challenged class who is a high performer and puts in extra efforts will be punished simply because their baseline was much lower than a teacher who punches the clock in a class of affluent students who have private tutors.

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

#56

Post by rrr_oh_man » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #19

calderwoodra wrote: post #6

The results confirm my biases, so probably too good to be true?

Is the statement "monetary rewards for performance improve overall performance" considered bias, or just common sense?

It’s just false (for cognitive work).

E.g. https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/Workingpapers/PD...

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

#57

Post by dwater » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #18

dwater wrote: 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…

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

First you have to define teacher quality. What should a good teacher provide to their students? Knowledge, ability, curiosity, safety, integrity, self-worth, honor, respect, kindness? Can these be quantified and compared against each other?

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

#58

Post by dmix » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

CoastalCoder wrote: post #48

readyman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why even engage this sort of thing? It's just going to turn into a flame thread.

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

#59

Post by rappatic » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

There's a very interesting chapter in the _Freakonomics_ book about catching cheating teachers. The authors use it as an example of incentives gone wrong: to hit their bonuses for high test scores, teachers have cheated in all manners of ways, from helping their students during standardized tests or literally changing their answers after students hand in the papers.

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

#60

Post by cess11 » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

gadders wrote: post #34

dwater wrote: 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.

Where I live schools are commonly for profit, so shareholders and bosses exert pressure to get higher grades.

It works, without the students learning more. Our universities are complaining that students arrive that can hardly read even though their grades say they are able to.

And yeah, we have standardised tests administered centrally so we can actually to some degree measure 'grade inflation' too, and know very well that employment/pay based on grading undermines whatever slim value grading would have otherwise.

Edit: Oh, and parents also exert such pressure.