The District Awards for Teacher Excellence in Texas
Teacher merit based pay has become a growing interest amongst politicians for the past fifty years. According to Jane Lincove, author of Can Teacher Incentive Pay Improve Student Performance on Standardized Tests?, “a growing list of school districts and states have experimented with teacher incentive pay” due to pressures of high-stakes accountability (3). Texas began deliberations regarding incentive pay as early as the 1980s (Springer, p. viii) The miscarriages of early incentive pay programs helped formulate the most recent teacher incentive pay program in Texas, ensuring it would be adequately funded, provide teacher involvement in its design, reward educators for student performance
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Gratz indicates that the report “could not provide links of teachers to students… so it is not possible to identify the most successful teachers or to identify the impact the teachers had on student performance” (Gratz, p. 3). The differences in scores between DATE schools from one year to another was less than 10%, making a minimal impact on student achievement.(3). In addition, the influence it had on math scores was one scale point above from the previous year and did not change for reading scores (3). Lastly, Gratz points out that the intentions of the Vanderbilt conclusions were to “inform policymakers”, with that in mind, it was “dictated by the need to produce information for Texas’ next funding cycle” (4). Gratz believes that although, educator surveys reflected positively, TAKS scores increased, teacher turnover was lower by 1-2%, and the findings were favorable to the DATE program. However, the findings were descriptive rather than analytic and Gratz considers that the report “may not meet its larger objective of informing policymakers” (4). As his report highlights, it had significant gaps and covers a time span for inadequate bases for “such a major policy decision” and only highlights results after one year, it fails to understand the complete success of the program with only one year of results
The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, otherwise known as the TAKS, is a standardized test used throughout the state of Texas to determine whether or not a student is prepared for the next grade level. The TAKS test was implemented in 2003 to replace the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills in concurrence with the “No Child Left Behind Act”. The new test added science and social studies portions to the already existing sections of math, reading, and English. The purpose of this was to obtain more information on where students are academically. However, since its inception, the test has been criticized for numerous reasons. The TAKS test has become ineffective in several capacities and has been used to determine teacher bonuses and assessment of how well a teacher is communicating, evaluations that it was not originally intended to decide. When taking into account all of these points of view, I have come to the conclusion that the TAKS test should no longer be used in its present function.
Salary schedules for public school teachers are almost a common feature in public school districts. These schedules largely determine the salaries for the teachers. A single district schedule sets the pay for hundreds of thousands of teachers in thousands of schools (Besharov 1). The key factor that influences the pay for the teachers in the salary schedules include experience in terms of years and the total number of graduate course works that a teacher has completed. This paper will look at the cons and pros of the salary schedules in terms of an economic point of view.
The expectation that a bad student in a public school will turn into a good student in a private school is not only absurd, it is yet another slap in the face of public school teachers. The presumption is that private school teachers are more effective than public school teachers. The expectation of improved scores is completely unrealistic. It's not that simple.
Women working in the Texas state government suffer wage inequality because all women carry the expectation that they will leave work to have a baby. Women determine whether they will or will not have kids, but even though their colleagues do plan on having kids or are pregnant, they all have the same designated pay. When hiring women employers have a doubt that they will stay the entire time and that it will be a permanent job so the employer does not feel a need to give them an equal pay compared to a man doing the same job.
Back in 2001, before the No Child Left Behind Act was proposed, the United State’s rank in educational performance was 16th. After the act was put into action, that rank moved up to where we now stand at 17th in the nation. Statistics also showed that because of America’s dropping education level, many teachers began to get discouraged in their professions. Although, America has not ever been able to hold the title ...
This program is generally focused to gather statistics on grade school inequalities that effect the entirety of the state. Researchers have suggested that school funding levels and student success rates are largely unrelated. The ability of schools to educate their children is affected solely by the teacher’s ability to teach. Yet for a number of years there has been a steady debate centered around the essentially counter-intuitive idea that the relationship between school resource levels and student performance is the only connection to California’s academic gap/ 1971, the California Supreme Court ruled this system of granted unequal funds to millions of children unconstitutional, promising California’s the state would standardize finances across all school districts. To do this California created Proposition 13 in 1978. This proposition reduced the local property tax revenues available to schools, and the state had to provide even more financial support to maintain similar funding levels across districts. Though it leveled the playing field for the middle class, this tactic created no growth in academic equality. In order to ensure a balance in opportunity to academically excel, California needs to scrutinize the funding system, to utilize all financial resources in ways that
The oversite committee then evaluates the success of their money allocation and incentivize the success of the public school’s education. “Americans do not appear ready to pay the price.” (Barber, p. 215) Money is the most powerful motivator, and if the success of school districts reaps the benefits of more financial resource, educators will fight to be the best. This new desire to be the best, is possible with the equalization of opportunity from the allocation of funds to the poorer schools. The race to the top would already be won by the larger, richer, and more powerful school districts without those foundational funds. “Because we believe in profits, we are consummate salespersons and efficacious entrepreneurs.” (217) Barber’s essay supports the idea of incentivized results. Not only would districts compete with other schools, but their standards would be raised year after year in consequence to the oversite of the
In 2002, President George W. Bush passed the “No Child Left Behind Act” which tied in schools’ public funding to standardized tests and enforced the tests in elementary and high schools every year by state education departments. This law also began to put more emphasize on standardized tests which has diminished our level of education and the law “made standardized test scores the primary measure of school quality” (Diane Ravitch 28). Bush hoped this law motivated more students to do well on these exams and teachers to help them prepare better, but it ended up hurting many schools in the process. These exams like the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) should not play such a prominent role in schooling and the government should not make tests the main focal point.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of Merit Pay and Incentives
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.
Although the Texas education system attempts to prepare students, it impedes students’ growth because it uses a sub-par system that ruins students early. The issues start as early as Pre-K, as seen in the legal battle deciding whether or not Texas school districts will be able to implement a new $116 million investment (Ayala, par.1). If schools fail to change their Pre-K system, they will ruin themselves because they are not investing in their future. Diane Ravitch claims that “education is the key to developing human capital” 223). Education will not only affect Texas’s economy but its civic and cultural life as well (Ravitch, 223). “The Texas education system is broken” (Jimenez). The goals of the No Child Left Behind Act are forcing teachers to reach a nearly impossible mandated goal that requires students to reach one hundred percent proficiency (Ravitch, pg.103). This means that students must completely master the
Adding bonuses to paychecks will make teachers feel that their jobs are worth keeping (“Announces $442 million in teacher incentive Fund Grants; 62 winners from 17 states”). If any teacher believes their job is not beneficial, bonuses will make them more confident in what they do. For example, if a teacher has to buy his or her own supplies with their own money, they will feel discouraged about the school not supplying them with essential classroom materials. But with increased payment, they can buy their own supplies and still have a check worth working for. But for teachers to achieve set payments, they must go through evaluations to see if they are suitable with higher payments
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. .
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).
Education is a vital tool for lifelong success but there are many areas of concern in the current system of public education. Education reform has been a constant occurrence since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Every year, specialists develop