Will Obama's Plan for Merit Pay for Teachers Work?

The Washington Times reported this morning that teacher pay systems are proliferating around the country in response to Arne Duncan and President Obama's desire to see pay for performance.

My fear is that many of these districts are throwing systems together without being strategic. This frenzy for stimulus money from ARRA is like a shark frenzy for blood. It isn't rational or at least can lead to poorly thought out systems. Existing merit pay systems are still being studied and many have been found lacking. In addition, no one has really set the goals for a teacher pay system. Is the goal student achievement? If so, how do we measure that? Is it teacher retention? If so, who do we want to motivate to stay? Is it those with higher level degrees? Is it those who practice specific methods of teaching? Is it those who display the most passion?

The system that we've proposed and implemented rewards many of these factors. The reason is that we began with the goals in mind, then decided what we would measure and reward. We looked at the characteristics of teachers that were most important to our school--passion, citizenship, leadership, method, etc. We also looked at research about what teaching characteristics make the most difference in developing students. We don't look at test scores. We look at the characteristics that normally lead to better test scores. Any group of students could perform worse than the prior group (which leads to another issue with tracking test scores by grade rather than cohort).

So, while I love the fact that Obama and Duncan support innovation in teacher pay, it will be interesting to see which if any of the pay systems implemented will work to achieve the goal of creating better citizens prepared for the work force and to be part of our diverse community.