New research on teacher ‘pay for performance’ schemes

Vanderbilt University’s National Center on Performance Incentives has just announced the publication of a text entitled Performance Incentives: Their Growing Impact on American K-12 Education, edited by Matthew G. Springer. The book’s Web site states:

The concept of pay for performance for public school teachers is growing in popularity and use, and has resurged to once again occupy a central role in education policy. [This text] offers the most up-to-date and complete analysis of this promising—yet still controversial—policy innovation.

In related news, the think tank Public Agenda has published a new study that finds:

Seventy-one percent of Gen Y teachers are open to rewarding teachers based on incentive pay, whereas only 10 percent of Gen Y teachers think that student performance on standardized tests is an “excellent” measure of teacher success.

I’ve posted on this topic in the past.

I’d also like to note that Dr. Ed Wiley, a quantitative research expert on the faculty of the U. of Colorado at Boulder*, has conducted research into accountability-based teacher pay programs, including Denver Public Schools’ ProComp. For an introduction to the quantitative models that underlie many ‘pay for performance’ schemes, I recommend this report by Dr. Wiley. (PDF format)

*Disclosure: I am a doctoral candidate at CU – Boulder and have studied with Dr. Wiley.

Updates on the Common Core Standards Initiative

Education Week reports that the Common Core Standards Initiative, an effort spearheaded by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, proceeds apace:

Academic scholars, teachers, state officials, school administrators, and at least one librarian fill the ranks of the newly announced “work groups,” for developing K-12 standards in English-language arts and math… The two teams will have the duty of completing the second phase of common state standards. The first phase was the drafting of college- and career-readiness standards, a draft of which was released a few months ago.

 

Meanwhile, Ed Week reports here that at least seven states have suspended or slowed their own development of state standards in an apparent attempt to take a ‘wait and see’ approach to the national standards movement.

(For some background, see my prior posts on this topic.)

College students “unimpressed” with their professors’ use of technology

Campus Technology reports:

While students and faculty seem to agree on the importance of technology in education, the two groups do not agree on how well it’s being implemented. According to new research released Monday, only 38 percent of students indicated that their instructors “understand technology and fully integrate it into their classes.” Students also rated that lack of understanding as “the biggest obstacle to classroom technology integration.”

Despite this, 74 percent of higher education instructors polled indicated that they “incorporate technology into every class or nearly every class,” and 67 percent said they were “satisfied with their technology professional development.”

U.S. Department of Education names new director for state ed tech grant program

Education Week reports:

After months of anticipation about who would head educational technology initiatives at the U.S. Department of Education, ed-tech advocates praised the appointment of Karen Cator yesterday, saying the former educator and Apple executive brings to the job a passion for the potential of technology to improve teaching and learning.

The long-awaited appointment comes at a time when interest in how technology can be used to improve education is growing as more K-12 schools offer online courses, use mobile technologies such as cellphones and laptops, and put in place high-tech data-analysis tools.

Schools becoming concerned about electronic communications between teachers and students

Education Week reports:

A new state law requires all Louisiana districts to implement policies requiring documentation of every electronic interaction between teachers and students through a nonschool-issued device, such as a personal cellphone or e-mail account, by Nov.15. Parents also have the option of forbidding any communication between teachers and their child through personal electronic devices.

Similar policies exist in many school districts across the country, and at least one other state has considered such legislation in recent years. But critics question the measures, saying they will likely restrict appropriate communication between teachers and students and discourage the use of new technologies.

“The motivation for the bill was growing problems with [interactions] that started relatively innocently and escalated from there,” said state Rep. Frank A. Hoffman, the Republican who wrote the bill, which Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law in June. “It’s to head something off before it ever gets started…”

Charter schools continue to grow

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has published this report on the state of public charter schools in the U.S. Among the reports findings:

• There are fourteen communities where more than 20% of public school students are enrolled in charters (versus six in 2005-06)
• Seventy-two communities have at least 10% of public school students enrolled in charter schools
• The ten districts with the largest number of students in public charter schools represent 22% of the total U.S.  charter school population (approximately 304,494 students out of 1.4 million)

Reasons NOT to tie teacher pay to student test scores

Gordon MacInnes of The Century Foundation has published this brief on the topic of using student test scores to measure teacher effectiveness, a proposition that has been advanced by a number of school reformers. This very controversial topic recently returned to news headlines after the New Haven (CT) teachers’ union signed a contract that includes student performance in the evaluation process tied to teacher salary.*

Among the reasons MacInnes gives for NOT using student test scores to ‘grade’ teacher performance:

• Students are not randomly assigned to teachers (nor to schools) – some teachers might only be assigned students perceived to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’
• Standardized tests are evaluated for reliability and validity based on their intended purpose,  such as assessing 4th Grade math proficiency, not for evaluating teachers
• Compensating teachers according to individual performance might lessen the impetus for teachers to collaborate and share best practices

 

*See this New Haven Register (CT) article for more information on the contract signed by New Haven teachers.

School desegregation: income vs. race

USA Today reports:

Struggling to improve schools that have large populations of poor and minority students and under legal pressure to avoid racial busing, a small but growing group of school districts are integrating schools by income.

More than 60 school systems now use socioeconomic status as a factor in school assignments, says Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, which studies income inequality. Students in Champaign, Ill.; Kalamazoo, Mich.; and Louisville have returned this year to income-based assignments.

Open educational resources bring the world’s universities to your computer desktop

NEWSWEEK reports:

In addition to [YouTube's education-focused YouTube EDU], Web sites like iTunes U, TED, and Academic Earth allow millions of people to download lectures by some of the world’s top experts—for free. Known as open educational resources—or OER—the movement is turning education into a form of mass entertainment. “There is a real appetite for content that is not just a sneezing-cat video,” says Peter Bradwell, a researcher for the British academic think tank Demos. “There is a growing desire for intellectually stimulating material that is easily accessible.”

MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) offers free access to most of the school’s course material and lectures on subjects like Anglo-American folk music and the behavior of algorithms. iTunes U provides free lectures, discussions, and conferences from schools like Oxford, Yale, and the French business institute HEC Paris. “The beauty of this platform is that it brings your material to a much wider audience,” says Carolyn Culver, head of strategic communications for Oxford.

The debate over 3-year bachelor’s degrees

Recently, NEWSWEEK published this cover story by former US Secretary of Education (and current Republican senator) Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Sen. Alexander argues that four-year bachelor’s degrees are outmoded and too expensive to maintain in the current economic climate. He concludes:

Expanding the three-year option or year-round schedules may be difficult, but it may be more palatable than asking Congress for additional bailout money, asking legislators for more state support, or asking students for even higher tuition payments. Campuses willing to adopt convenient schedules along with more-focused, less-expensive degrees may find that they have a competitive advantage in attracting bright, motivated students.

 

In the same issue, NEWSWEEK published this very interesting debate between five researchers and policy makers from around higher education. Both these articles are well worth reading.