The TAP program could get a big boost now that the new school board majority is set to take over on Tuesday.
As noted in today's article, the new majority thinks TAP can help provide incentives for teachers to work at high-poverty schools, which would increase in some areas under neighborhood schools.
It's a shift from how TAP was viewed by the old board as a supplement to the diversity policy. Outgoing board members such as Patti Head had thought of using TAP in schools where the F&R percentages were high despite efforts to balance enrollment.
But the new board members and current board member Ron Margiotta are taking a more expansive view of TAP, now being piloted at Wilburn Elementary School.
Under TAP, teachers are encouraged to stay in the classroom through extra pay by applying to become master and mentor teachers. Wilburn Principal Jennifer Carnes says teachers have to earn these positions by applying annually and achieving a high score on their annual evaluations.
Under the merit pay provision, teachers can earn as much as $2,000 a year in bonuses based on their evaluations and how the school fares on the SAS EVAAS program.
Unlike the state's ABCs program, at least when it's funded, it's not a case of every teacher getting a bonus at a school.
Bonus amounts vary at TAP schools. Carnes said every teacher got a bonus last year but that's not a guarantee.
Then there's the professional development time, called learning clusters. Teachers meet in weekly 90-minute sessions. This year, Wilburn is focusing on reading strategies.
These learning clusters are held during the school day. New board member John Tedesco said this is one possible way to keep time for professional learning teams without dismissing students early each Wednesday.
Carnes said the program can be used at any Wake school.
The program's benefits are why outgoing school board member Eleanor Goettee is pitching it o the new board members even though it could be used to help replace the diversity policy. Goettee met with the new board members to discuss why she thinks TAP is so valuable.
Goettee said that she'd ideally like to both keep the diversity policy and expand TAP. But in the end she wants to make sure that TAP is expanded.
Goettee complained that the administration and former school board chairwoman Rosa Gill held up TAP's expansion in Wake. She said Wake should have already been applying for federal grants without making a school like Wilburn fund it out of its own Title I budget.
"There are federal grants out there to administer the program which we haven't applied for," Goettee said. "I feel that's negligent."
Administrators had questioned what would happen when the grant money ran out. Gill, who like Goettee is a former Wake teacher, had questioned the fairness of using merit pay.
Comments
fairness issue
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 13:19 — louiselee44I think that I might be able to shed a little light on the reservations that some folks have about merit pay - at least about the way it's been done. IF it can be implemented in a fair way, go for it. But if it is based solely on test scores, etc. of students, or on a subjective evaluation by a principal, therein lies the "unfairness" potential.
Say, for example, that a teacher is especially good with learning-disabled children, and gets, along with average and above-average students, a larger number of low performers assigned to her class. She does an outstanding job with all of her students, and they grow academically, as well as in ways that can't be measured on a piece of paper. Her scores, however, are lower than the other classes, due to the make-up of her group. Will she receive merit pay? She might be the best teacher in the whole school, but can only go "so far" with some of her students because of their learning problems.Just throwing that out as an example. Teaching is a difficult profession for which to implement merit pay, because there are so many intangibles that can't be measured per se. Teachers touch childrens' lives in so many different ways. But - I'm quick to add - it infuriates me, as a former teacher, when I see mediocre teachers being paid the same, or more, than those who give above and beyond because they care - really care - about every single child in their class.
Yes, there needs to be a way to reward the best. I just wish I had the answer as to how to go about doing that in a fair way... It sounds like TAP might work a little differently, though, so maybe that's the way to go. I'm not very familiar with the program.
TAP Program
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 14:19 — lferreriI've been reading the TAP web site and trying to understand how it works. Apparently, there are three components to a teacher's evaluation and possible bonus: "Classroom achievement growth", "Schoolwide achievement growth", and "Evaluations using TAP". These can be weighted differently by different school districts. (They give examples of the weighting used by Chicago and South Carolina.) The achievement growth seems to be evaluated using a value-added model that may be similar to the EVAAS evaluations. They actually cite some articles written by the creator of EVAAS.
One of my concerns is about the "Evaluations using TAP". My experience in teaching has included some evaluation methods that were based on rewarding a particular teaching style, usually the latest fad in teaching. This completely disregards the fact that different subjects may need different approaches. For example, I taught introductory accounting but was supposed to have students do "original research". It just didn't fit with the subject being taught. I couldn't tell from the web site exactly what they mean by "TAP Instructional Rubrics" although they did give one example.
I also have some other concerns including the cost of this approach as opposed to other possible merit-based systems. Remember this is a program devised and sold by Michael Milken's family (of insider trading fame). I'm being a cynic here, but I can't help wondering about how much funded publicity this is getting and how profitable it may be for them. Also TAP takes great teachers out of the classroom (they are called Master Teachers). The tradeoff is that they train other teachers. I don't know if this is a good tradeoff or not.
I agree with you that a merit-based system using only test scores or subjective evaluations by the principal is not the way to do this.
You raise some good
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 13:55 — CaryCurmudgeonYou raise some good questions, but I think smart people can figure out the right answers -- if they want to. I'd like to see consideration given to including parental input into a merit pay calculation. Through the years, my kids have had some great teachers who went overboard to ensure students learned in class. Then we have had other teachers who relied on us parents to do their jobs for them. Responsiveness to parents should also be measured. No doubt, academic achievement should be the primary consideration.
I would also love to see merit-based programs applied to principals. Every principal runs a multi-million dollar business. Today, there's no downside to failure. If a principal does a lousy job, they are transferred to another school, or they are moved to a nice job in the central office. Each of these "executive" jobs should carry high risk/reward.
Is TAP focused on reading or
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 11:14 — red_balloonIs TAP focused on reading or other subjects too? I browsed the TAP website a bit but couldn't locate this information.
hmmm Merit Pay...seems obvious to me
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 09:47 — haskell5Unfair??? High expectations + hard work = a bonus at the end of the year...sounds unfair if we DON"T pay it out. It is time for us to reward the teachers that go that extra mile to make a difference. Any other career works this way, work hard, reap the benefits. Why is it called unfair? If you give more you get more. If you coast and do what you need to just get by, no bonus. The acceptance of the mediocrity of some is not helping our kids. For those of you with kids in elementary school...think of it as a 4 on the report card...they get it and apply it.
Can someone please explain
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 08:18 — Dadof3I'm not being rhetorical. Is merit pay similar to employee bonuses in private industry for exceeding work expectations? I want to understand how merit pay can be unfair.
It's mentality
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 13:14 — TrailerParkGirlMerit pay is fair.
People with a union mentality will claim merit pay and promotion unfair. Outside of teaching, I can't think of too many professional careers mired in union mentality. IMO that mentality is a roadblock to the teaching profession getting the respect it deserves. The profession needs to make a choice either conduct itself like a group of professionals and be viewed as such or conduct itself like nonprofessionals and be viewed as such.
For that matter - what is fair about tenure? What is fair about being stuck with teachers that have no business being in a classroom? What is fair about exceptional teachers with 15 years experience making the same as ineffective teachers with 15 years experience? What is fair about teachers who put in extra effort and time being paid the same as those that don't?
How do I measure
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 14:06 — Athey01the exceptional teacher vs. the ineffective teacher?
If you can not create the proper quantitative measurements, the difference between the two types of teachers becomes too subjective. I'm not argue against merit pay, but IMO, merit pay is not fair or unfair, its only a payment method. I'm unsure how a merit pay system would work in the teaching profession.
Subjectivity
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 19:55 — Bob_SconceSo, the important thing is to create the right incentives for teachers. As long as the incentives are correct, it's fine if there's some subjectivity or even arbitrariness in who gets the bonuses. What you want to avoid is creating perverse incentives -- you want teachers to spend their efforts with their kids instead of spending them sucking up to the decision maker.
The fact is that every bonus system has these problems -- it's weird to me that we worry so much about fairness in teachers bonuses, but not with, say doctors, engineers, lawyers, managers, etc.... They seem to work in industry despite their flaws; why the suspicion that they won't work in the public sector?
Hard to explain
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 23:52 — louiselee44It's difficult to explain unless you've been there. By the way, I'm married to an engineer, and figuring merit pay for someone dealing with machines, computers, etc. is quite different from figuring merit pay for someone whose "product" is a child. :^)
Not to oversimplify it, but
Tue, 12/01/2009 - 09:25 — red_balloonNot to oversimplify it, but wouldn't it aid objective assessment to administer standardized tests to students at the start and end of the academic year? Some of the performance pay can be tied to the score differential between the two tests.
True...
Tue, 12/01/2009 - 00:13 — Bob_SconceSo, the concern is that it's difficult to measure.
yes
Tue, 12/01/2009 - 08:44 — louiselee44I guess that's a good way to put it. I agree though, something needs to be done.
BTW, regarding the post about tenure for principals - I know of one whose lost his tenure - so where was he put? In the classroom with high school students - not a good role model, believe me!
A pure services model
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 17:08 — Dadof3Many successful businesses are able to fairly reward purely service-based, and training-based positions with a reasonable amount of accuracy. They use a combination of hard quantitative metrics and softer criteria.
Why wouldn't this approach be fair, if fairly administered by the principal?
I'd like to think the anti-merit pay argument has enough momentum to make a better argument than "it's not fair."
How do you measure
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 15:00 — TrailerParkGirlThe same question could be asked about any profession - engineer, accountant, lawyer, etc. and yet milions working in these professions and others are measured every year.
Are the results always perfectly fair? Of course not. I, myself, have had the working for the hardest reviewer experience. Life is not perfectly fair. However, all and in all it seems less likely to breed mediocrity or worse. Every place I've ever worked there has been a general sense of who the high and low performers are - who is on their way up, out or staying put. Why is that people seem to have a sense of which teachers you 'want' and 'don't want'?
How merit pay can be unfair
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 10:38 — Athey01As in the private sector, it depends on who is setting the criteria. Also, are the goals, subjective or quantitative? Finally, it depends upon who is evaluating the goals. Some supervisors "grade" easier than others. Some supervisors grade all of their employees as superstars.
So...
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 11:52 — Dadof3Anything can be set up to fail; perhaps the report here is too terse; but I'd still like to know, specifically, what is unfair about merit pay, outside of poor implementation.
Well In This Case
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 23:23 — chaboard....unless I'm misreading it....the merit pay would only be available at certain schools, right? It's not hard to imagine how a teacher at another school might think that to be grossly unfair. Is it?
On the other hand, if you make it available everywhere then it can't serve the purpose that the neew board is reportedly considering it for (an "extra" resource to be thrown at the re-segregated schools).
Bit of a paradox there - you can't simultaneously claim it's fair to all teachers AND that it can be used to reward only a favored subset of teachers by being made avalable on grounds other than merit.
Broader
Tue, 12/01/2009 - 00:14 — Dadof3I'm asking a bigger question, which appears to be unanswerable, though that is not my intent. You point to implementation problems, not a fundamental failure of merit pay.
Hi Charlie, I believe
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 23:45 — CaryCurmudgeonHi Charlie,
I believe there are two levels of merit pay which are getting intertwined here. One is a "mission possible" kind of program, similar to what is used in Guilford County. All teachers would be eligible to participate, but some would choose not to. The level of incentives could be adjusted to drive the right mix. The second program is one which would measure all teachers on performance, so all teachers would participate. A merit program is fair as long as all teachers have had the opportunity to participate.
Hope things on CP have improved.
Merit pay is fair. The
Mon, 11/30/2009 - 11:12 — red_balloonMerit pay is fair. The implementation can be unfair. Our concerns shouldn't be with instituting merit pay but with the manner of implementation. It is not impossible to implement a pragmatic merit pay system.