One thing we have learned definitively in recent years is that teachers differ in their ability to raise students’ achievement. Research shows that your child’s learning will be very different at the end of the school year if he has the best teacher in his grade rather than the worst teacher. Importantly, it is not a master’s degree, a teaching certificate, or experience that makes a teacher the best or the worst. The data show that some teachers are simply better at raising achievement and that their superior talents are not revealed by credentials that would show up on a resume. Since we can identify the better teachers ex post but not necessarily when they are hired, it makes sense to reward teachers based on their students’ learning gains.I think that, given the recent research that correlates education success with gifted and motivated teachers, strengthening this group is a fascinating approach. However, I wonder what sort of incentives Professor Hoxby had in mind. Intuition tells me that most teachers, especially ones in inner-city schools and traditionally underserved areas often take up the profession for a variety of reasons, of which monetary reward is not amongst the top. Therefore, what sort of incentives would motivate teachers to perform better for their students? Also, as suggested in the Freakonomics book, would this sort of incentive cause more teachers to cheat (for more information, see the book: teachers' cheating methods include fabricating standardized testing scores, providing easier tests & quizzes for their students, or even giving them answers beforehand!)If states introduced bonuses for teachers who raised achievement substantially and gave bigger bonuses to teachers who raised disadvantaged students’ achievement, considerable progress might be made in closing the achievement gap. Such a policy would not only give teachers strong incentives to improve their teaching, but it would also draw talented people into the teaching profession and keep them there.
Other suggestions in the quorum included various mechanisms for improving high school education to prepare students for post-secondary school (as opposed to lowering admissions and curriculum standards in colleges--something which I haven't actually seen happen much so far), investing in means to support impoverished children and families, improving pre-school study (a "head start" approach to education), and many more...
I think the question of how far back and how early an age to invest in quality education is an important one. For example, should we start by building on pre-schools and elementary schools or focus more on high school education? In addition, should we focus on recruiting better teachers into the profession, or is it more of a systemic problem that needs a massive overhaul?
What do you think?
2 comments:
Jeez, there's a lot to touch upon here, and I'm more interested in hearing Steve's or any current educators' take on the subject before giving my own.
One or two things though. The teacher-incentive approach I think is a recipe for disaster, cheating to get ahead being one big reason. There's also the issue that certain teachers, for all they attempt, merely don't have the means or ability to teach better than others, and such incentives might actually hinder teachers more than have them work harder, particularly if certain students are rendered almost unteachable. Again, I'd like to see what those on the front lines have to say about this since they're the ones with first-hand experience.
But personally, I'm not sure that teachers themselves are the reason for the achievement gap. Student motivation is not by teachers alone; parents, society, and personal drive I think have more to do with this. True, teachers SHOULD get their students excited about their respective subjects, but honestly there's only so much a teacher can do.
Well, there are several objections to decisions like this one. However, several schools in NYC are participating in a performance based incentives program, including my own school.
So if my school meets certain standards set forth by the DOE, each union member will earn up to $3000 in spendable cash by the end of the school year. If we meet 75% of our standards we are entitled to only $1500. I voted against this initiative since it would influence our school's report card grade, which we cannot afford to go down or else our school will close down.
I have mixed feelings about an incentive-based educational system. For one, there's more to teaching than the teacher. You could have the best pedagogue in the world teach but without the proper resources or if the students are not properly scheduled for the classes they need, there's really no amount of expertise that will save the achievement gap. And some of these achievement gaps are pretty outrageous, so it's not fair to create these incentives unless they favor classrooms that have a broad range of student abilities.
Also, no two classrooms are alike, so who is to decide what teachers are closing their gaps any better than each other? It's really impossible to reliably measure, especially in an urban context where you can have students who should still be in elementary school end up in upper level science classes.
Programs like this one would also give administrators even more of a reason to cut funding for teacher supplies from their school budgets. They will take the position that teachers need to earn the money to buy what they need, which I don't agree with at all. I have already spent $800 or more on teaching supplies for experiments and demonstrations, $260 of which I was reimbursed for. These incentives would basically be held over teachers' heads for resources they regularly need. So if I spend $3000 on school supplies anticipating an incentive at the end of the year and it's determined that I haven't done enough, then I get fucked out of expenditures that my school should have helped me out with.
Though the prospect of making extra cash at the end of the year is pretty cool, it's not worth the consequences. It's either close the gap and make your money, or lower your report card grade and risk losing your job.
There are just too many variables to reliably measure how well teachers are closing their gaps, it's just not possible to measure. And who's to say that this information cannot be manipulated?
This American mentality that education is do or die is not a healthy one. It only promotes the same mentality that gets the lawyers involved.
In terms of college preparation, there's a college for everyone. If a student has the desire, they will go. There are schools in NYC that have really poor admissions standards so it's possible for students to attend college after graduating from high school in NYC.
The system itself is experiencing a shake-up. They've ended social promotion in K-5 when Bloomberg took office. Now they're planning to end social promotion in middle schools so this will hopefully close the gap and create more accountable schools.
So in NYC, the system is slowly changing for the better. I can only hope that now NCLB will incorporate parent involvement and not just the schools and districts.
I wouldn't say that an incentive program would be a disaster, it's certainly possible to implement, but it's really not the best use of the DOE's money. And it's probably not the best mentality to show America that teachers need to be bribed to do their jobs more effectively. In terms of money, we need to focus on the overall classroom conditions and not on the performance of the schools. It's not really fair to give Bronx Science the same budget as my school since the available resources are not anywhere near equivalent.
At this point, our system is in the middle of a massive overhaul. Give it 5 years and there should be a significant improvement in my student abilities (and I'm not talking about just my students, I'm talking about my incoming students from middle and elementary schools - maybe they'll send some kids that can read and multiply numbers).
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