This study analyzes four articles’ study findings as well as authors’ conclusion on the teachers’ incentive pay issue based on the studies presented by the authors. Those articles include Steele, Murname and Willnett (2009) that seek to analyze the effect of incentives on teachers’ retention. In the article, a natural experiment done in California between the year 2000 and 2003 involving an incentive of $20,000 that was called the Governor’s Teaching Fellowship (GTF) analyzes the incentives’ effect on talented teachers’ attraction and retention in low-performing schools. In addition, Fryer (2011) is the other article presenting an analysis of teacher’s incentives’ effect on students’ success in terms of attendance, academic performance or graduation. The article utilizes a school-based random trial involving more than 200 public schools in New York. Further, the analysis reviews an article by Figlio and Kenny (2006) which is a documentation of students’ performance’s relationship with teachers’ performance incentives. The study utilizes United States data combining the authors’ survey that was conducted in 2000 with National Education Longitudinal Survey on students and schools in regard to teachers’ pay incentives. Finally, Nael (2011) is an article on an analysis of education incentive schemes through a review of empirical studies that evaluates educators’ performance pay programs. Thus, the article will provide a suitable review on designs of student’s achievements measures and teachers’ performance metrics. Article 1: Relationship between teacher pay incentives and student’s performance Figlio & Kenny (2006) presents the first systematic documentation of the relationship that exists between students’ performance and the ... ... middle of paper ... ...g jobs at the existing pay. In addition, incentives would retain the teachers as they would not be motivated to look for alternative jobs. (Barron & Lynch, 1987) Works cited Barron, J. & Lynch, G. Economics. London: Richard D. Irwin Inc, 1987. Print. Figlio, N. D. & Kenny, L. “Individual Teacher’s Incentive Programs and Student’s Performance”. NBER Working Paper 12627, October 2006. Print. Fryer, G.R. “Teachers Incentives and Students Achievement: Evidence from New York City’s Public Schools”. NBER Working Paper 16850, March 2011. Print. Neal, D. “The Design of Performance Pay In Education”. NBER Working Paper 16710, January 2011. Print. Steele, J., Murname, R. & Willnett, J. “Do Financial Incentives Help Low Performing Schools in Attracting and Keeping Talented Teachers? Evidence from California”. NBER Working paper 14780, March 2009. Print.
The exhortation of using incentives to receive and analyze responses reoccurs throughout the book periodically. Levitt and Dubner believe that incentives can be categorized into three different types: moral incentives, social incentives, and economic incentives. Moral incentives are defined as circumstances in which someone acts purely out of conscience or guilt. Social incentives are observed when a person’s actions are solely linked with shame or glory. Economic incentives are when people act with financial interests and benefits in mind. One example portrayed in the book is the day care center in Israel. When parents start getting charged a late fee for picking up their child at the daycare facility, more parents show up late. Before the fine was placed, parents would pick up their kids on time with a moral or social incentive. After the fine was placed parents acted with an economic incentive, which wasn’t as bad as a sense of guilt. Further data shows evidence of relations between incentives and cheating in the Chicago Public School System. In 1996, the school system started to give bonuses based on the standardized test scores of teachers’ students. If a teacher’s students showed improvements on their test scores, the teacher received a monetary bonus. Researchers found after studying score results from 1993–2000 that a spike in cheating occurred in 1996. A three-year study showed that on average cheating occurred in at least 200 Chicago classrooms per year. Therefore, Levitt and Dubner’s theory of incentives is
The author states in “A New Deal for Teachers” that in America, especially in poorer school districts, teacher quality is lacking. In urban districts, out of the new teachers hired in the next three years, about half of them will quit (usually the quality ones). The recruitment of better teachers is, as the author says, the biggest problem in our education system. He states that he’s been told by urban teachers that many of their colleagues are incompetent. Contributing to this is that state requirements are very low, which allows poor quality teachers into schools. Miller explains that smart and competent people who want to be teachers, are getting more and more difficult to find. This is true mainly because there are fields of work that those
Podgursky, Michael. The Single Salary for teachers in K-12 public schools. New York: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Figlio, David N. "Teacher Salaries and Teacher Quality." Economic Letters 55.2 (1997): 267-71. Sciencedirect.com. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.
Some people believe merit pay creates competition and favoritism. They seem to think school systems will pay some teachers more than others and create a “battle” for money. In Merit Pay: Good for Teachers? By Gary Drevitch, one interviewee states, “I know it’s worked in some places, but I shudder at the idea of teachers being in competition with each other.” None of these problems will occur if school districts implement a successful, unbiased system. Another issue society presents when it comes to merit pay comprises of differentiating a “good” teacher from a “bad” teacher. School districts can easily evaluate a teacher’s ability to educate students by the work teachers put into helping students. Student’s reactions to a teacher’s class can also help evaluate teachers. More often than not, students will love a class where the teacher clearly demonstrates lessons, explain procedures, and adds elements of fun. On the other hand, students typically dislike classes where the teacher only comes in for a paycheck. This attitude is displayed by their lackadaisical teaching style. Other people argue that money should not be the reason why people go into teaching. Richard Barbieri, author of Merit Pay? argues that money is not an external motivator, but the substance of a teacher’s motivation. Financial incentives will cause employees to work harder
When was the last time that you saw a teacher sporting off a brand new Lexus? Or when was it that you heard of a teacher owning a ranch? The answer to this question is probably never. Although material possessions such as owning a luxurious home or driving an extravagant car might be chump change for people like the rich and famous, for teachers this kind of spending is literally an arm and a leg. Even simple necessities are out of reach with a teacher’s salary. The reason for this problem is due to our nation’s budget. Teachers along with others in the school system are underpaid and are not being adequately compensated for their services. Instead of rewarding teachers with higher pay the government is undermining their work. As a result, teachers are unable to buy that expensive car or even pay off that Honda that they bought when they were in college working for their teaching degree. School budgets must be increased immensely in order to insure the educational growth of students and the professional development of teachers. There are four main reasons that are discussed in this paper, as to why more money should be spent on education.
The first thing on Weber's list is that a profession is self-employed and provides a service to the community (Bennet & Le Compte pg. 150). One way to disagree with this statement is that teachers run off salaries, so they are not self-employed. Joel Spring offers statistics on average white-collar occupations. Per year teachers average $43,250, compare this with an attorney and it may make some cringe as they are making an average of $82,712 a year (Spring pg. 175). Salaries in education follow the natural law of supply and demand. Increasing incoming teaching pay will attract more to the field, but should administration be worried about attracting the new? I think they should focus more on losing the more experienced. They all are deserving of more. Although, I have to say, if it was about the money, most would not choose the teaching profession. It is about the children, which is why I prefer to look at the criteria through the classroom. Teacher's have a lot of freedom to teach as they please and conduct their classes as they see fit within the content standards that is. I have been in many classrooms where teachers use different methods to convey the material; some use PowerPoint, worksheets, quizzes, overheads, while others prefer discussions and essay writing. It is said that teachers make an average of 200 decisions per hour (class notes. October 11, 2004). They do o...
According to Dana Goldstein, author of The Teacher Wars, “50 percent of all beginner teachers choose to leave the profession in the first five years” (7). This is either due
(Ronfeldt, Loeb, and Wyckoff, 2012) state that “about 30 percent of new teachers leave the profession after five years.”(Sawchuk, 2012) said that teach turnover affects students achievement negatively and it was large in schools with low performance. It means that high teacher turnover causes low students’ performance. What other scientists said about the high teacher turnover that affect low students’ scores. National Center for Education Statistics found that 8 persent of teacher left the profession in 2008-09 for reasons other than retirement (Education Innovation Instituc, 2011). Continue high turnover contribute in creating turbulent atmosphere that impedes academic planning and implementation, disrupts the relations between teachers and families, and it can be an indicator of underlying imbalances in school (University of Northern Colorado, 2011). The most important findings is that teacher turnover influenced by academic field (Ingersoll 2001). 4 present of new teachers left the schools after their first year (NCTAF State Partners, 2002). The impotence of chosen these source to know what is the problem to find the best solutions to solve
price of that good and service, and an increase in supply of a good or
There are many ways to compile data on a teacher and determine that person’s performance. Teacher performance can be based upon classroom observation, a teacher’s continuing development and education, and students’ standardized testing scores. The controversy centers around using student test scores to determine the performance of a teacher and thus her pay. Scott Andes, a research analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation voices the merits of performance based pay with his article “Getting Serious with Education: Why Can We Measure Students but Not Teachers?” High School English teachers, Jordan Kohanim and Ashley Ulrich vehemently state why there is no merit with performance based pay with their article, “No Merit to Merit Pay Arguments.” In each article both sides debate how performance based or merit pay will affect students, teachers, schools, and com...
The largest portion of increased spending during the 20th century occurred to hire more teachers to reduce class size and to provide more out-of-classroom services, particularly for special education purposes. However, they argue that neither strategy boosted student achievement very much. Also, although education spending has increased teachers' salaries, it has not been used to improve the quality of the teachers. Notably, Odden et al. found that both low-spending and high-spending school districts fund education spending in the same proportions, meaning that high-spending districts tend to have lower class sizes and higher teacher salaries. The authors argue this discrepancy reflects the "fiscal regulariti...
Duke, Daniel L., ed. Incentive Pay and Career Ladders For Today's Teachers. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. 42-241. Grand Rapids Community College Database . Web. 6 Apr. 2014. .
Many states such as New England have begun to experience the effects of teacher shortages in the areas of Math and Science (Fowler, 2009). The teacher attrition rates have become a problem to many administrators and educators with teachers leaving at twice the rate of nurses and five times the rate of lawyers. Prior work by Ingersol and Perda, have revealed that the annual attrition rate has risen by 19-26% (Jennifer, 2010). As a result, educators spend more money in fast track programs that many researchers believe do not solve the problem. Instead, they contribute to the issue by bringing more inexperienced teachers into the classroom. Despite the promising results of professional developmental programs, these programs can be very costly and can take time to determine their full usefulness. The author believes there are alternatives that do not require costly techniques but instead models and actions that education administration can adopt to increase teacher retention. Instead of focusing on the reasons teachers leave the field, the author takes a different approach by examining the dynamics that cause teachers to stay in the field pass their five year mark.
The state’s new evaluation system was in response to administrators who produced, “superficial and capricious teacher evaluation systems that often don't even directly address the quality of instruction, much less measure students' learning” (Toch, 2008). Too often, the “good-ol-boy” attitude would insure mediocre educators would remain employed. Realizing this was often more the rule then the exception, the governor created educational mandates to focus, “on supporting and training effective teachers to drive student achievement” (Marzano Center, 2013). Initially, they expected the school districts and the teachers would have issues and experience growing pains, but in the end the goal was, “to improve teacher performance, year by year, with a corresponding rise in student achievement” (Marzano Center, 2013).