Should Teachers Be Paid For Student Achievement?

For the past two years or so, Bill Gates has been focusing on supervising the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Ever since he stepped down from his leadership role at Microsoft, the foundation has been putting its resources into improving education in the United States.

 

In 2000, the foundation spent hundreds of million dollars on trying to make high schools smaller, but found out that the size of classrooms has little effect on achievement. Since then, they have been working on the premise that the quality of teaching affects student success more than any other single factor. This is an idea that is shared by the U.S Education Secretary.

 

The idea is to identify and reward good teachers and encourage or remove that one who aren't helping students to succeed. The foundation is investing over $290 million over seven years to the Memphis, Tampa and Pittsburgh school districts. The programs they have designed for these selected schools will penalize teachers whose students do not perform as well as expected on tests. Teachers who have students achieve higher scores than anticipated will be rewarded.

 

It seems to be a similar idea as the “No Child Left Behind” law, that requires all public schools to make adequate yearly progress on standardize testing. The main difference being that the laws hold schools, rather than teachers, accountable. The plan that was put in place in Tampa will start grading teachers this year. Their scores will be comprised of 40% student's learning gains, 30% evaluations by the principal and 30% coming from reviews by other teachers in the district. Teachers who are highly rated could earn more money in their third year with this program than a teacher who has been working for 20 years in a traditional school setting. The goal is to give teachers an incentive to learn from other teachers who are achieving higher ratings and creating an environment within the school where teachers are supporting each other, all with the goal of reaching each child to the best of their ability.

 

Changing the atmosphere in any workplace can have a major impact on workplace productivity. And a school is not that much different. Often, teachers who have been in the classroom feel isolated and are often brought down by the negativity of more senior teachers who may feel burned out. Negativity is contagious, and the thought with this program is that by putting a peer evaluation in place, teachers can mentor and support each other.

 

There is still a great deal of controversy around the idea of teaching for a test, among the general public and teachers alike. In spite of the chance at an increase in pay, many teachers are skeptical of Gates' plan. A national survey of 40,000 teachers co-sponsored by the foundation found that 36% of them said that tying pay to performance is not at all important to retaining good teachers. To make things worse, 30% said that it would have no impact on student achievement.

 

How do you feel about paying teachers for student performance? Do you think that this will help teachers become better at reaching students? What do you think about corporate America funding changes in public schools? Let me know in the comments.

 

 

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By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.