Craig HillWould Merit Pay for Teachers Improve Education?
September 8th 2006 23:27
Ross Gittins raises the question of merit pay for teachers. His point is that it wont work because you can't measure teachers' performance. He says that if you concentrate solely on test scores teachers will "game the system" and skew their teaching in that direction, ignoring other important aspects of children's education.
I agree that educational outcomes are varied and complex and that test scores are not the only thing that matter, however, there are a number of compelling arguments in favour of merit pay for teachers:
1) Education in general would benefit by attracting teachers who are entrepreneurial and who wish to be rewarded for their efforts. Currently there is no financial motivation for teachers to innovate new and more effective teaching methods.
2) If a child, class or school has consistently poor results, concentrating on test scores would at least constitute some sort of improvement and is better and leaving the failing students to bump along at the bottom.
3) Measuring improvements in test scores and adjusting for IQ give a much better indication of teacher performance than just recording raw scores.
I agree that educational outcomes are varied and complex and that test scores are not the only thing that matter, however, there are a number of compelling arguments in favour of merit pay for teachers:
1) Education in general would benefit by attracting teachers who are entrepreneurial and who wish to be rewarded for their efforts. Currently there is no financial motivation for teachers to innovate new and more effective teaching methods.
2) If a child, class or school has consistently poor results, concentrating on test scores would at least constitute some sort of improvement and is better and leaving the failing students to bump along at the bottom.
3) Measuring improvements in test scores and adjusting for IQ give a much better indication of teacher performance than just recording raw scores.
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Comment by Paul Kearney
I've been thinking about your position on privatising schools on a voucher system for a number of years now (slow thinker, I know - hope you're still interested), and I've come up with a few serious objections, which I think you should deal with if you want to argue this position more publicly.
Firstly, it seems to me that the basis of your argument is that the free market, whose power you would like to harness in the area of education, forces choice, quality and efficiency on the producers of education, creating a better product for the consumer. Regulating markets, as the government has done in education, and by giving public schools a guaranteed -for the most part - supply of students encourages complacency in teachers and beurocratic waste.
So, in essence, it is a free market argument, one that has been used to decentralise other public companies such as the banks, to varying success.
But there are problems with markets, it seems to me - as an amateur economist - and these problems have particular relevance when it comes to education.
1. The market cannot provide a service where it is not profitable.
We are witnessing this problem now in regards to Telstra and its supply of phone services to the bush. In regards to education, what will happen under your scheme to those - particularly rural schools - that the market would not provide for? At present, I believe they are subsidised more than city schools, and can also use the resources developed for the whole education system. Would they simply miss out?
2. The market is not completely efficient, and very often it is the image (brand) of a product that improves, not the product itself.
This has particular relevance for education. It is very hard to measure the quality of an education, particularly as it occurs over thirteen more years, and so parents are often confused as to how to judge a school. Often, parents are buying, not an education, but an image, a brand name. We are already seeing private schools - and some public schools - spending more on advertising, and this can only get worse as you deregulate the market. Schools are always on a tight budget, and any money spent on advertising is money diverted from education.
You might argue that it is the reputation, not the image that parents pay for, not the image, and that this reputation is well deserved. This may be so. However, it takes a long time to change the culture, and hence the reputation of a school - more so, I would argue, than a company - and only a short time, in today's world of marketing and spin doctors, to whip up a slick advertising campaign. In a market system schools will not have that luxury of time, as the customers need to be attracted quickly.
3. The market focuses on providing chiefly those qualities that are measurable.
This is something companies have to struggle with. How do they communicate the immeasurables - ethics, environmental care, care for workers well-being - to their customers or investors, who simply would like the maximum amount of product for the minimum amount of cost. This has much larger repercussions in an educational context, as so much of education is immeasurable. The care the teachers provide, the growing of friendships, a culture of sport, or intellect, or spirituality, or tolerance. None of these can be measured, and so will fade away as the market become more powerful. As parents /the current rapacious federal government become most interested in increasing the UAI, or providing elite sportsmen, or tomorrow’s journalists, the immeasurables will fade away, as only what is measured becomes important. We are already seeing something of this in the private school system, as schools compete with one another to attract students. Each one must improve its UAI average or top sporting teams, the most measurable aspects of a school, and instead of improving its education, “buys” smart or sporting people using generous scholarships.
Perhaps we will realise our mistake after ten years of the market system, upon which the market will adjust itself. Parents will demand schools with inspiring cultures and so on. By that time, a whole generation will have lost out, as markets can be inefficient at transferring information, and schools will have forgotten how to foster - as it takes time - those past qualities.
4. The market creates greater inequality in the available choices and niche consumerism.
By allowing consumers to spend as much as they’re willing or able to spend on education, schools will presumably spring up to cater for the very rich, the middling rich, the poorer-than-average and the very poor. We get what spend, says the market. This will have at least two implications. Education, so the current ideology goes, is the best way for a person to transcend his or her socio-economic status, and someone from a low socio-ecomic status, only able to afford a bad education, will never escape his or her status. Apart from its essential morality, a fluid class structure has other benefits, including a better political system and a better economy.
Secondly, by segregating children into economic and religious niches – Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, elite, poor , sporting, intellectual– we risk not only dividing Australian society but stifling minds. An education is not simply the ingesting of facts or theories. It is also a socialisation process, through which we learn to accept and understand that there exist people with different worlds, values and outlooks than us, and that these words are valid as well. This is not wishy-washy liberalism, avowing the usual tolerance, and please do not dismiss it as so, although tolerance is not such a bad quality to have, of course. Education, in its broadest sense, is an expansion of one’s world view, a recognition that ones own theory of the world is inadequate, and must account for another world view. While it is idealised to suggest that this rosy picture occurs every day in schools, everyone trying to understand each other’s point of view, it does to some extent, and is a large part of a student’s education.
If, in twenty years, we have an elite who doesn’t understand what it means to be poor, an artistic community that doesn’t know what it means to be wealthy, a Muslim and Christian community that don’t understand each other, we will have l;ost the ability to discourse with each other, and democracy will die.
I am, of course, exaggerating the amount of mixing and tolerance that goes on in public schools – middle class areas have middle class schools etc. – but, in this regard, public schools serve the community much better than any stratified private system.
5. The market can tend to a monopoly
This is probably of minimal, concern, as schools, by definition, are limited in capacity, but there is a chance that this could come to fruition through some sort of franchise. In this case, a dominant ideology, unaccountable to the people, as government is, will dominate the market and in fact stifle choice. This is a much larger concern in education than in other industry because, as all education - not just government schools – relies on ideology, and parents will have no choice to submit to it. Evidence of how this might be a problem occurred in a letter to the Manly Daily the other week. The grandfather reported that his son had to send his sons to a Christian, not a public school, in order to get a quality education. He lamented that this meant that they were being taught by a science teacher who believed, and taught, creationism. The school is only accountable to itself in a monopoly situation, as opposed to the public system, which must indirectly justify itself to ministers, academics, beurocrats, and, ultimately, the public.
So there you have it, Ross. Five objections to the voucher system that you propose. I think these are serious objections, and must be countered if your proposed scheme is to be valid. I believe too that schools should be flexible, efficient, and most importantly, provide a quality education, for the wel being of not only our students, but the society at large. However, so far I’m not convinced a voucher scheme is a way to do it.
Take Care,
Paul.
Comment by Ross
Thanks for thoughtful and eloquent comments. My response is posted here.