Merit pay or team accountability?

08-31-2010

Commentary by Kim Marshall/Education Week (subscription required)

Kim Marshall, a former teacher and administrator, is the author of 'Rethinking Teacher Supervision and Evaluation.'

It’s time to admit that the idea of evaluating and paying individual teachers based on their students’ test scores is a loser. This logical-sounding strategy for improving teaching and learning sinks for multiple reasons: practical (standardized-test results arrive months after teachers are evaluated each spring); psychometric (these tests aren’t valid for one-shot assessments of individual teachers, and it takes at least three years of value-added data for reliable patterns to emerge); staff dynamics (when individuals are rewarded, collaboration suffers); curriculum quality (low-level test preparation festers in a high-stakes environment); moral (turning up the heat increases the amount of cheating); and simple fairness (how can schools divvy up credit among all the teachers who contribute to students’ success?). So why are folks still talking about individual merit pay when it’s clear that it won’t work? (more…)

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Merit pay or team accountability?

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