Why Merit Pay Doesn't Work, Pt. 8,736,399

Two more examples of why merit pay doesn't work.

In Houston, there's a battle over whether merit pay bonuses and the scores assigned to teachers are public record or not.

Should the public know who got bonuses and who didn't?

There are a couple of reasons why Houston school officials might want to keep secret how they disbursed $23 million in teacher bonuses: They might want to avoid hard feelings on school campuses or dampen challenges to the controversial merit pay program. Neither of these is in the best interests of the taxpayers.

The district's stated reasons for not wanting to reveal names of employees who received the payouts and the amount of individual checks is that the information supposedly is confidential under the state's public information law. Before disbursing the checks, the district asked to keep the information private because the amounts were only estimates. Employees received those estimates this month, so they could appeal any mistakes before checks went out Jan. 30.

Now that those estimates have been converted into actual checks, this contention looks more like a stalling tactic than a legitimate argument.

Then there's the other merit pay crucible, Floriday, where districts are required to rate teachers based on student performance. One district is making a mockery of the rule:


State law requires that there be some way to rate teachers based on how their students perform.

To comply, the Polk County School District decided to use an average of students' grades to help determine how teachers are doing.

Both teachers' representatives and the district say that system isn't great, but they say no one was able to come up with a better way to do it.

Critics of the plan say teachers of students in Exceptional Student Education classes and teachers with students from lower socio-economic groups are unfairly penalized.

"They (teachers) hate it," said Marianne Capoziello, president of the Polk Education Association teachers' union.

"They don't hate it because they are afraid of performance being assessed; they hate it because it doesn't seem to be a level playing field, especially for teachers working with at-risk children."

Bill Strouse, the school district's director of professional development, said the evaluation's not perfect, but officials are only abiding by state rules.

Merit pay sounds good on the surface. But the logistical problems in making it fair and reasonable are serious. And real. And as these examples show, the devil is in the details.