Merit Pay Research Paper

“…only twenty-two percent of those surveyed said increased testing had helped the performance of their local schools compared with twenty-eight in 2007” (“Public Skeptical of Standardized Testing.”). Furthermore the poll indicated an eleven percent increase, compared to last year, towards the favor of discontinuing the usage of students’ test results for teacher evaluations. William Bushaw, executive director of PDK International and co-director of PDK/Gallup Poll also stated, “Americans’ mistrust of standardized tests and their lack of confidence and understanding around new education standards is one the most surprising developments we’ve found in years” (“Public Skeptical of Standardized Testing.”). All in all, not only are these tests a concern for students, who are forced to sit through them, hoping to get a decent enough score to place into a class, receive their diploma, or even get accepted to the college of their dreams, but they are a concern for parents as well, who only want the best for their children and to see them succeed.

One of the main issues with merit pay for teachers is found in the manner in which it is measured. Most of the new performances pay laws and union contracts measure “effectiveness,” at least in part, by looking at the students’ test scores from one year to the next. One test score cannot paint a full picture of a student's accomplishment. Teachers unions have historically opposed merit pay, arguing that test scores are not an accurate measure of student achievement (Turner, 2010, para 15). Most teachers will report that a test will only show part of the picture. Standardized tests do not reflect life lessons, effective citizen traits, or character building traits that were taught that year. All of these traits thrive in an effective teacher’s curriculum.

     High school teachers’ average salary varies across the world. The United States is said to be one of the richest countries in the world, yet our teachers are being paid one of the lowest amounts. The Education Intelligence Agency, author of the article “Ohio Teacher Overcomes Union’s Tolerance” published an International Teacher Salary Report ranking the fifty states by “how much the average salary exceeded per capita personal income.” According to the Education Intelligence Agency Ohio’s percentage rate is only fifty- five point one percent. According to the Education Intelligence Agency the lowest state percentage is in South Dakota at twenty- three point six percent and the highest state percentage is

Among the few nationally discussed topics today almost everyone can agree on is that our educational system needs serious repair. School buildings are in a physical state of neglect. Teachers are struggling. US school rankings are below average internationally, and graduation rates are at an all time low. The primary contributing factors for this are economic. Sadly, our society has allowed government administrations to place education at the low end of the federal budget with indisputable results. Our current policies on education do not support the needs of all students through inadequate prioritization, inequitable funding, and the devaluation of educators.

In 2013, the average annual salary of a teacher in the United States was 56,383 dollars. This is for all grades before college. it varies from an average of 75,279 dollars in New York, to an average of 39,580 in South Dakota (How Much Teachers Get Paid — State by State). That is a huge difference in pay for the exact same job. If the test results of students were equal to the teacher’s pay, we would have a much more concrete way of paying the teachers. If the state’s economy is struggling nowadays, they don’t have the money to pay the teachers what they deserve, but in this new way, they will be required to give the teachers their hard earned money. In every other job in the United States, you get paid based on your performance. With teachers, the principal does not have enough time to evaluate every teacher and pay them based on how well they did. If the teachers were paid based on the tests, there would finally be a way to evaluate how well they taught the students. The less effective teachers will be pushed out of the system, while the strong ones

Those who are in favor of teacher merit pay systems feel as though the use of this system can eliminate the possibility of seniority outweighing high performance. They believe that those teachers in merit pay systems would be made to perform better in the classroom and demonstrate great teaching skills. Although there is some truth to this idea, it should not be accepted in the argument of teacher merit pay. In the Christian Science Monitor Reg Weaver stated merit pay systems would warrant “an adherence to some type of evaluative standard “ This means that teacher evaluations would consists mainly of the scores from

Teachers have and will always have a big impact in everyone’s life and if not everyone, well, at least they did for me. They teach you everything you need to know about a subject and valuable life lessons, so why are they not paid sufficiently enough to make a decent living? Teachers salaries have always been low and I believe it is the time that changes. Being a lawyer, doctor, or engineer is great, but none of that would be possible without the insight of a teacher, I will inform you in this paper on why I believe there is a need for action. I will go over the background of teacher’s salaries, my ideas on what would be best for teachers not just in Texas, but nationwide, and pros and cons on the issues and ideas at hand.

The K-12 education in Florida is falling apart as the misuse of standardized testing continues to threaten the future of students and teachers across Florida by narrowing down the curriculum, value-added models generating ineffective results, widespread cheating, decreasing self-confidence among students, lowering of the passing mark and neglecting important factors such as socio-economic status. Florida is faced with the pressure to attain a hundred percent proficiency which is pushing teachers to spend their instructional time teaching test taking strategies instead of implementing an effective curriculum to promote learning. Value-added models are generating ineffective results which are jeopardizing the careers of teachers. The pressure

Many people believe that funding is an issue for higher education as well in our high schools. Since the majority of school teachers are under appreciated it also means most are under paid. “If we were serious about change, we would raise teachers’ salaries to levels that would attract the best young professionals in our society” (Barber 122). The average high school student going into college is not going so they can get a teaching degree when the wages are not there to support a family on. Many school systems lately have been switching to “performance based” funding. Meaning that those schools which perform well get more money. However, “some states have

Seniority pay reimburses workers on the foundation of the length of time he/she has been with the company. Usually the individuals who have been with the company the longest would receive the highest pay. Employees who have been with the company for a long period of time and have earned the title of seniority are given special treatment such as promotions, vacation time and scheduling. Merit pay is more based on the performance of an employee. The individual that show effort in their work and show they want to achieve in their job are rewarded with an increase in wages and bonuses.

In order to implement a merit pay system with fidelity, the teachers will have to be effectively evaluated using test scores as well as classroom instructional practices. Research states effective teachers are critical in making a difference in student achievement (Wellington, et al, 2016). Unfortunately, the funding deficits makes it extremely difficult to attract teachers to the district. Due to this crisis, my district put into place a voluntary switch to the universal pay guide. The universal pay guide is not measured by education, instead it is based on steps or years in the district. The district uses an evaluation system based on teacher practices and student standardized assessment scores.

This publication was a paper that was presented at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association. Hanushek and Rivkin’s paper spoke about the influences of teachers to student’s achievement, it can be seen that standardized testing is not a proper way in determining educational quality. With their value-added research, the statistics show the presence of a significant amount of differences in teacher effectiveness even within the same schools. Due to the fact that now in many districts “teacher effectiveness” is based solely on test scores concerns of personnel compensation, employment, and promotion are brought up, including the issues of cheating and teaching methods that are narrowly focused towards the test are an ongoing problem

The idea of a merit pay system is pleasant, but acting on it is the difficult part. Results from standardized tests and classroom observations are used to measure the effectiveness of the teaching, which are not always true representations of success: “By year two, nearly all the schools in the study were

School districts all over the country has instituted merit pay into their programs in various programs. A widely discussed state is in Denver, Colorado where its voters in 2005 approved a $25 million funding boost in teacher pay. Under this plan, one of the factors that can increase a teacher’s pay is additional coursework and advanced degrees received by the teacher. In San Francisco, a new plan that has been implemented is pay increase for teachers at a hard to staff school. Since it is a new plan, there hasn’t been an official analysis of it yet. plan, which has not produced sufficient data or analysis as of yet. In New York, two districts have merit pay type plans which are pretty similar and are not for achieving certain goals rather than

Merit pay can has the potential to create negative rivalries among teachers decrease their perceived value. Due to a decrease in test scores, some schools began to offer merit pay as a way to refocus teachers on the achievement of their students, with the hope of increasing the effectiveness of teachers (Ciruczak A.11). The increase of performance pay became a high priority for the United States Department of Education, especially after the Obama Administration allotted funds for a campaign called Race to the Top, which distributed around $4.3 billion dollars to schools throughout the country (Rosales). After the implementation of this program, feedback came pouring in. According to Kristen Dechert, Mississippi State Research and Curriculum Unit employee, teachers began basing their worth on their pay, "the finding we had was that (the bonuses) . . . affected their personal morale - they felt more or less valued than other teachers in their building” (Ciruczak A.11). Despite these efforts, merit pay could produce the opposite effect and decrease the willingness of individual teachers to perform well (Froese-Germain). In an attempt to eliminate such problems, some schools have taken steps in an alternate direction. Districts in Helena, Montana decided to allot funds for professional development, and chosen to eliminate test scores as a basis for pay (Rosales). For them, a major factor is service to the school district and to the community (Rosales). Since many teachers