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Performace pay for teachers has been in the news after a plan has been released by a study group. The verdict is still out on the plan. The Des Moines Register has results from a poll on the subject.
Forty-four percent of Iowans agree that teacher performance pay is a good idea, while 48 percent disagree, according to a telephone survey of 602 Iowa voters taken last month by Selzer & Co. Inc. of Des Moines.I wrote this back in July about an article in the Register on the achievement gap. It is also very fitting when talking about performance pay for teachers.
"Pay-for-performance finds no consensus," pollster J. Ann Selzer said Wednesday to board members of the Institute for Tomorrow's Workforce, which is studying the issue.
Here in Marshalltown, in one Kindergarten classroom at one of the more affluent schools 17 out of 25 students tested at grade level in September. At the school I worked in, where many students live in poverty, out of the three Kindergarten classrooms just 4 out of 75 students tested were at grade level in September. These tests were given after just 1 month in school and clearly show difference a child's home environment.Does the achievement of these students mean the teachers at the 2nd school aren't as good or don't work as hard as the teachers at 1st school? Not at all. It means that every classroom has different challenges and some of those challenges can't be measured by a standardized test or a paycheck.
Chet Culver also disagrees with performance pay, saying...
"This idea that we need to make teachers jump through more hoops and over additional hurdles to get them to the national average (in pay) is, I think, a little bit overdone," said Culver, a Democrat and former government teacher at Hoover High School in Des Moines.If the goal is to improve achievement, instead of making teachers jump through more hoops, lawmakers should be focusing on providing quality pre-school so all students are ready to learn when they enter school. If the goal is to increase teacher pay, then they should just increase teacher pay.
"We have a problem out there, and it's not that they're not performing," he said. "The problem is we're not committing the resources to pay them a salary that is comparable to at least other states in the Midwest."
2 comments:
"If the goal is to improve achievement, instead of making teachers jump through more hoops, lawmakers should be focusing on providing quality pre-school so all students are ready to learn when they enter school."
Well that could work but I think there are many other factors that need to be looked at.
What if those children have problems at home that result in them not being able to apply themselves in school? I also believe children's peers can also influence how well some children do.
I remember when I went to school there was a stigma associated with doing well academically. Schools need to combat that attitude from the git go, before the dumb kids can set precedents like that.
I can see that as being a problem in from 4th to 5th and on. I teach 2nd grade and every student in my classroom wants to learn and wants to do their best. I think by the time they reach upper elementary, some get so discouraged that they must compensate for their difficulties academically and what you see is an attitude that doing well academically is for losers.
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