{"id":13307,"date":"2012-09-20T11:01:59","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T15:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=13307"},"modified":"2012-09-20T11:02:02","modified_gmt":"2012-09-20T15:02:02","slug":"chicago-teachers-strike-settlement-a-victory-for-actual-merit-pay-researcher-argues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/09\/20\/chicago-teachers-strike-settlement-a-victory-for-actual-merit-pay-researcher-argues\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Teacher’s Strike Settlement A Victory For Actual Merit Pay, Researcher Argues"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scott Olson \/ Getty Images News<\/p>

Chicago teachers ended their strike this week. A researcher says they won concessions over "phony merit pay."<\/p><\/div>\n

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.”<\/a><\/p>\n

What’s the difference? From Greene’s blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

True merit pay \u2014 the kind of compensation for job performance found in most industries \u2014 provides effective employees with continued employment and regular raises while ineffective workers lose their jobs. \u00a0If you do a good job you get to keep getting a pay check and if you don\u2019t you have to look for work somewhere else. \u00a0That\u2019s true payment for merit because un-meritorious workers stop getting paid altogether.<\/p>\n

In phony merit pay \u2014 the kind that hardly exists in any industry \u2014 there is a mechanistic calculation of performance that determines the size of a small bonus that is provided in addition to a base salary that is essentially guaranteed regardless of performance. \u00a0You can stink and still keep your job and pay. \u00a0The worst that can happen is you miss out on some or all of a modest bonus. \u00a0To make it even more phony, in the few cases where this kind of phony merit pay has been tried, the game is often rigged so that virtually all employees are deemed meritorious and get at least some of the bonus<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Greene favors allowing the market to determine who the best teachers are rather than complex statistical formulas<\/a> subject to large margins of error<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Chicago closes a traditional public school for low enrollment the teachers are laid off. \u00a0The new contract appears to place some limits on this, but the practice has generally been preserved. \u00a0In addition, unlike in some other big cities, principals in Chicago are free to hire teachers as they see fit and are not forced to take teachers laid off from school closures. \u00a0The new contract does require<\/a>\u00a0that half of all newly hired teachers come from those laid off and guarantees re-hiring only for the highest rated teachers, but according to the city\u2019s summary of the agreement<\/a>: \u201cPrincipals maintain full authority to hire whichever teacher they deem best.\u201d<\/p>\n

The net effect of growing charter schools, closing under-enrolled traditional public schools, and only hiring back the best and most desired teachers from those schools is a true merit pay system. \u00a0Bad teachers are let go. \u00a0Good teachers not only get their job back, but they also get an extremely generous pay raise over the next four years for staying and being good. \u00a0That\u2019s real merit pay.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2014 the kind of compensation for job performance found in most industries \u2014 provides effective employees with continued […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":13319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[1007,1015],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13325,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13307\/revisions\/13325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}