Merit Pay for Teachers: Into the Hornet's Nest

The Economist:

“HORRIBLY divisive” is how Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, describes the recent distribution of $15m in bonuses to teachers in the largest school district in Texas. Most teachers received payments averaging close to $2,000. But an angry minority received none; and everyone learned what everyone else got when the Houston Chronicle's website published a list of teachers and amounts. Raising hackles further, 100 teachers were asked to return part of their bonuses because a computer glitch had inflated them.

This was Houston's first year of doling out such bonuses, and its troubles may have prompted the Texas House of Representatives to vote against a statewide merit-pay programme. The idea of merit pay is a good one: teachers should be paid more for teaching better. At the moment, few teachers in America receive bonuses, and their salaries are based mainly on length of service or their degrees. But the system, put in place early in the 20th century, is not working. Jay Greene of the University of Arkansas says that spending per pupil has doubled in the past three decades, while student-achievement measures such as high-school graduation rates are roughly flat.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 11, 2007 8:56 AM
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