Illumination | Spring 2008

However, unlike Raabe, Herrington does not believe a narrowed curriculum is an unavoidable consequence of incentives. She, along with Podgursky and the American Federation of Teachers -- another powerful teacher's union -- believes it is possible to design a comprehensive incentive program that includes both principal and peer evaluations along with test scores in its measurement of teacher effectiveness. Not only would such evaluations discourage teaching to the test, but they would also allow districts to reward teachers who are doing good work that might not be reflected in results from student testing.

"So, for example," Podgursky says, "suppose we always assign the kids that act up to you because you are good at discipline. That will hurt you in terms of test score gains. But the principal will know that, so I'm not going to be stupid. I'm going to take that into account in looking at an overall evaluation for you."

The subjective nature of evaluations, however, brings up another concern. One of the key reasons school districts adopted the single-salary schedule was to prevent administrators from allowing personal bias to guide their compensation policies. Systems based on subjectivity, Raabe argues, create "too much opportunity for tomfoolery."

That's why the American Federation of Teachers says incentive plans must have easily understood standards for the rewards. "They have to be clear," says federation spokesman George Jackson. "Past merit pay programs have been very complex, very nebulous, to the point that people were suspicious of how they were being implemented."

Sometimes, Herrington says, the breakdown happens not because of dishonesty but confusion. "We need a lot more consensus about what good teaching looks like," she says. "School systems need to train principals and teachers how to observe teachers and how to accurately measure their performance. That, of course, has its own costs. These are not obstacles that cannot be overcome, but again, are districts willing to do it, and do it well?"

Though the American Federation of Teachers does not support compensation based on test scores or evaluations, it does endorse the use of evaluations and tests to measure performance. "The main purpose... is to improve practice so every child is getting the education he or she deserves," Raabe says. "It's not about pay; it's about practice."

Herrington agrees, at least to some extent. "That is probably the biggest bang you're going to get," she says. "Looking at student tests and these evaluations is what the teacher learns about how to improve his or her performance in the classroom."

A third criticism, that incentive systems promote unhealthy competition among teachers, stems from so-called "tournament" systems which put teachers in competition for a fixed number of merit rewards. Many educators oppose such systems because, they say, teachers must work together as a team: They need to brainstorm, strategize, and otherwise provide professional support, advice and expertise for one another. They fear -- with good reason, some research shows -- that a competitive pay system would undermine such collaboration.

Published by the Office of Research.