Does Performance-Based Pay Have Any Merit?

Background

Florida is a pioneer in the effort to base teacher salaries on student performance and give those teachers with the best results the highest raises, and a bill creating a sweeping new merit pay system was the first legislation Gov. Rick Scott signed into law in March.

Merit pay is a reform pillar of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the Foundation for Excellence in Education he founded. Bush pushed for the idea while in Florida and is now touting the benefits of performance-based pay nationwide. the idea is to reward teachers who get the best results or most improvement from their students — just as the private sector would pay for performance.

The concept has district-level support too, such as Hillsborough County Public Schools superintendent MaryEllen Elia, herself a former teacher. Elia believes testing students’ knowledge before and after a course will reveal how effective a teacher is.

Data-based analysis of teacher performance is here to stay. Hillsborough County is using a $100 million Gates Foundation grant to design a new system to evaluate and train teachers. Florida won a $700 million federal Race To The Top grant to design a similar statewide evaluation system — which lawmakers now require.

Teachers and their unions object to basing teacher pay on the results of standardized exams designed to test something else entirely, but many teacher unions signed on to the Race to The Top grant.

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February 8, 2013

Teachers Question Why Proposed Pay Raises Come Before Teacher Evaluations

Sarah Gonzalez / StateImpact Florida 5th grade teacher Beverley Dowell says she hopes the Governor “isn’t trying to buy teacher votes” when he suggested every full-time teacher in the state get a pay raise before their evaluation results come in. Most districts won’t start identifying, and potentially removing, low-performing teachers from their schools until next [...]

How A C-Rated School Can Be Full of Effective Teachers

Florida Senate President Don Gaetz wondered how low-rated schools could be full of teachers earned positive evaluations.

Last month Senate president Don Gaetz raised eyebrows when he questioned the accuracy of Florida’s new teacher evaluations. The evaluations are based on a complex statistical formula which weighs Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores and other factors to calculate how much a teacher influences student learning. The evaluations will eventually contribute to how much a [...]

January 24, 2013

Lawmakers Get Update On Teacher Evaluations And The Student Success Act

A Florida House panel heard an update today on teacher evaluations and the state’s implementation of the Student Success Act, also known as Senate Bill 736. The Florida Legislature passed the law in 2011 that changes the way teachers are evaluated and paid in an effort to improve student learning in K-12. The law is [...]

January 16, 2013

Florida School Districts Hope More Pay Will Mean Less Turnover

Florida school districts are trying new ideas to reduce turnover at low-performing schools.

Two stories today look at how school districts are trying to entice staff to take hard-to-fill jobs. Lee County and Miami-Dade schools are considering the obvious solution: More money. In Lee, the school district has tapped a federal grant to pay teachers earning good reviews more money to work in schools with high turnover rates, [...]

January 14, 2013

Florida’s New Education Commissioner Tony Bennett Starts The Job Today

Tony Bennett was Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana for one term. He lost his re-election bid in November 2012, and was appointed Florida's schools chief by Governor Rick Scott.

Tony Bennett drove from Indiana over the weekend to start his first day as schools chief in Florida today. Last month the State Board of Education hired Bennett, a Republican who served as Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction for one term. He lost his re-election bid there after Democrat Glenda Ritz organized a grassroots campaign [...]

November 19, 2012

Indiana, Idaho Election Results Weren’t About His Agenda, Bush Says

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at the Republican National Convention.

Indiana voters threw out the a Superintendent of Public Instruction with close ties to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. In Idaho voters overturned three laws based on policies Bush has supported in Florida. But Bush doesn’t take those results personally — it’s about Indiana and Idaho and not Bush’s policies. Bush says overall the results [...]

November 7, 2012

How Indiana And Idaho Voters Sent A Message To Jeb Bush

Democratic challenger Glenda Ritz upset Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett in Indiana. The election was seen as a national referendum on education reform, particularly policies pushed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Our sister sites StateImpact Indiana and StateImpact Idaho have done a great job covering big education-related election stories this year. In Indiana, Democrat Glenda Ritz upset Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett. While in Idaho, voters appear to have repealed three laws — known as “Students Come First” — which sparked opposition from state and [...]

September 20, 2012

Chicago Teacher’s Strike Settlement A Victory For Actual Merit Pay, Researcher Argues

Chicago teachers ended their strike this week. A researcher says they won concessions over "phony merit pay."

Education researcher Jay P. Greene argues the agreement between the school system and the Chicago Teacher’s Union is a victory for true merit pay over “phony merit pay.” What’s the difference? From Greene’s blog: True merit pay — the kind of compensation for job performance found in most industries — provides effective employees with continued [...]

September 10, 2012

Gov. Rick Scott Sitting Down With Teachers And Parents To Talk Florida Schools

Gov. Rick Scott will set out on a “listening tour” of Florida schools this week. His plan is to get input from teachers, students and parents. Scott says he “wants to hear Florida’s education stakeholders voice their ideas on how to improve the education of our state’s children.” Scott has been accused of not listening [...]

July 27, 2012

Feedback Loop: Debating Whether Principals Are Issuing Snap Judgments

Is 20 minutes enough time to figure out how well a teacher is doing his or her job? That’s what Miami-Dade teacher Karla Mats asked after she received a 20-minute observation from her principal — the minimum time required by the district. Mats was disappointed she was not among the highest-rated teachers and she questioned [...]