Does giving teachers bonuses improve student performance?
One of the hottest ideas in education policy these days is tying teacher pay to student performance on standardized tests. The theory is that offering up cash bonuses will prompt unmotivated and unaccountable teachers to get their acts together and do better by our kids.
The first comprehensive study of this approach, from the Nashville public schools, showed an effect somewhere between minuscule and nonexistent. The students of incentivized teachers did no better than the students of teachers paid regular salaries.
Now an even bigger study is out from Roland Fryer, a prominent Harvard economist and an architect of some of these programs. In an impressive paper published last week, he examines the effects of pay-for-performance in the New York City public schools. Here, from the paper’s abstract (and with italics added), are his key findings:
“Financial incentives for teachers to increase student performance is an increasingly popular education policy around the world. This paper describes a school-based randomized trial in over two-hundred New York City public schools designed to better understand the impact of teacher incentives on student achievement. I find no evidence that teacher incentives increase student performance, attendance, or graduation, nor do I find any evidence that the incentives change student or teacher behavior. If anything, teacher incentives may decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools.”
I’m all for experimenting with new solutions. But it should be clear from these results — not to mention, from 50 years of research on human motivation and performance — that improving American education will take bolder and less convenient solutions that dangling a few carrots in front of our teachers. (You can read Fryer’s full paper here.)
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68 Responses to “Does giving teachers bonuses improve student performance?”
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I am against performance pay and I am a teacher. I have seen performance pay lead my colleagues to do unscrupulous things just so they can “get their bonus”, as one colleague put it. Not once in the conversation that she and I had, did she state that she wanted to see them do well. Her motivations were for her own financial gain. The way I see it, she should work in the private sector where that is expected. I’ve read other postings mention about family involvement..THAT indeed is key, as you can have the best teacher in the world, but without anyone at home to support your endeavors, you are sailing on a shipped destined to sink.
Even if incentive pay for teachers wasn’t and extremely flawed strategy, it still wouldn’t matter. Politicians and school administrators are trying to grasping at straws to try to fix the existing system. The existing system, an obsolete remnant of early 20th late 19th century industrial ages is the real problem.
Our schools are designed to mass produce, mildly educated, obedient factory workers, which in the 1940-1970′s it did a reasonable good job of. However what we need now are technological in information craftsmen, not robots.
I believe we need to begin looking at education as more of an apprenticeship, where we provide the student with the basic skills necessary for them to being to follow their own path. While I am not a proponent of homeschooling, I believe that one of the reasons home schooled students tend to excel on standardized testing is for the very reason that their education has more in common with and “educational apprenticeship” than one sizes fits all, top down, micromanaged factory school curriculum. The home schooled get the basics, and then the freedom to follow there interests.
Teach reading, writing, compression and math and then encourage the kids to explore.
I would agree that a pay incentive would not increase test scores for a very obvious reason. Teachers, good teachers who care about student learning and helping students get the best education possible, did not start teaching because of the money. They started teaching because they loved to teach and that was satisfaction enough. The only reason I could imagine that an increase in pay would help students test scores is that teachers would be able so spend more time on developing great curriculum instead of having second jobs. But if a teaching is not teaching well because the pay is too low, they should not be teaching at all.
Incentive pay doesn’t work and isn’t fair. A teacher is either already motivated or un-motivatable. It’s unfair because different teachers can get different kids. I have always volunteered to get more sped kids and the ELLs. I am used to working with them and I am willing to work with their IEP teachers with them. So my classes are weighted down with the kids who do more poorly on the standardized tests. Why should I be penalized for going above and beyond? Socioeconomic status of the school is also a HUGE factor. Poorer schools tend to have poor scores and it’s not always the teacher. Home life/support system is the biggest factor. I teach at a school in a fairly affluent area and my scores are top notch but I also spent five years in an inner-city school with very poor scores. I’m the same teacher, doing the same stuff, teaching the same subjects.
As a student about to leave the public education system and head to college, it seems to me that overall performance, not simply test scores, would absolutely improve with extra incentives offered to teachers. My mother is a teacher, and although our retirement system here (Colorado) pays fairly well for state workers who have been in the system for 30+ years, there is no doubt in my mind that the happiness of a teacher is directly corrolated to their salary. While many of you may say that happy teachers are not necessarily good teachers, I would beg to differ. Outside of my my household, holding conversations with my current teachers, it’s easy to see how teachers are simply not happy due to the pay cuts, larger class sizes, and decreased benefit options. There is simply a MAJOR feeling of indifference that floats around the staff of our school now that they are expected to have students perform better with even less resources then before. I have seen first hand that teachers who are happy are not only more respected by their own students in the classroom, but also have more motivation to be better teachers and to receive better results out of their students. Teachers pursue there career because they want to be around adolescents and make a difference in their lives, and it is of no suprise that their happiness level would increase if their success rates did go up.
Simply put, extra tutoring that students might need costs money, and there are very few cases in which students who receive outside help do not improve in that certain subject. These tutors charge high rates and wouldn’t take an extra hour out of the day because they felt good about it, it’s because they are getting that extra little bit of money. With public education funding at an all time low, it’s easy to see how these teachers simply don’t feel the need to be the absolute best they can be. Incentives help whether statistics show it or not!
As the daughter of two teachers, both of whom taught in the same school district for 30 and 37 years, I can assure you this system is not a one-size-fits-all solution. My father was the outspoken president of their teacher’s union in their poverty-stricken rural school district, and both him and my mother were regularly given the “problem” students in their classrooms as punishment for fighting for their rights. How would compensation for standardized test scores be fair when the overwhelming majority of the students in one classroom were learning disabled and anything but standardized? There would need to be some sort of assurance that equal numbers of high performing and low performing students were in each classroom. Should my parents be punished with lower compensation because they fought for ALL the teachers to receive better benefits and better wages in the first place?
What many people aren’t taking into account is the role that home life plays in education. My mother has many students in single parent households or being raised by grandparents, and unfortunately has a few students every year with incarcerated parents. No matter how good of a teacher she is, these kids aren’t focused on school.
I don’t think there are any teachers who went into the profession for the money, and while having more of it certainly would be nice I’m sure, there are many more factors that come into play here.
This might sound like a good idea on the surface, but anyone who really knows how the school systems work would be outraged.
Dan,
There is so much talk about improving education (which I support), and lasering in on teacher performance. In at least one of our great states, overpaid and overcompensated teachers became the “root cause” of the budget problems. It strikes me that the challenges in our education systems are less about the teachers ability to teach and more about the grinding bureaucracy of an outmoded model of education and an outmoded educational outcomes.
Where is the evidence that says that corporate bonuses improve individual, senior executive, or business performance? I believe that studies commonly show that extra money in the form of bonuses has little impact on performance. People want to be recognized and appreciated and listened to – and to feel that they are part of an inspiring vision larger than themselves. As long as people are fairly paid and the pay makes it possible to live on the income from ONE job, why are bonuses necessary in any environment?
And why is the conversation about improving education focused on individual teacher performance?
Well pay incentives don’t really work in the financial world either so why would they in education? Of course the pay scales are different so the marginal impact will be different, but he point is people are not motivated as much by money as other things.
I am not a teacher, but the parent of a teacher and of course a former (still learning) student.
This is a very complex problem that has been oversimplified by armchair quarterbacks. In a complex society we do not really understand the challenges of different occupations. When I was in elementary grades my parents took an interest in my progress, provided lots of reading material in the home and talked to teachers. I am sure there is a lot of that in American and Canadian homes, but from a distance it seems teachers do have extraordinary challenges, but little respect from others. Gene, in an earlier comment expressed that he would be more motivated if he was shown more respect.
No one who is the object of abuse can stay strongly motivated forever. The abuse comes from politicians saying what they say to get votes, parents too busy or preoccupied to really understand and support their kids, and a general public attitude that teaching is for those who can’t do anything else.
I think a teacher can make a difference. Time spent one on one and time spent preparing is important. As a salesman one example that impressed me was of a doctor who asks lots of questions before making a diagnosis and suggesting treatment. Teachers need to ask lots of questions of their students and ideally of the parents and then apply their knowledge and creativity to helping a student learn. We all need to that and we all need to respect the uniqueness of each other’s challenges.
Most teachers are some level of motivation, but like everyone else can find their level of motivation sapped by abuse.
This simply verifies what many of us in education already know. Unless designed and moderated very carefully, you cannot use this type of system as a means to improve school quality.
I am a teacher, actually, one who was asked to be on our school’s Q-Comp committee to research and implement such a program this next school year.
Most of our teachers are against the proposal, but only because they do not wish to be scrutinized under the regulations.
Really, as an educator, this is my realization:
We are teachers, most of us in areas where the amount of jobs are low, and the applicants come in by the hundreds.
We have reduced funding, added responsibilities, next to nothing in terms of support, and increasing demands.
Many teachers are overworked. (I can say this as a mother, who is a full time teacher, and is on 7 different committees at my school.) As we reduce the number of staff in our buildings, we increase the amount of responsibilities on each remaining staff member. (Yes, do realize the corporate world has experienced the same, it is simply to be pointed out as an item of interest…in terms of what level the working class is going to be willing to shoulder as far as responsibilities, given the decrease in pay and recognition. It is the same for educators.)
As my class sizes increase, my pay decreases, my responsibilities increase, and the scrutiny of my students testing is placed under greater intensity each year. Every year, our individual class scores are put in a presentation and shown/compared/analyzed with the rest of the grade level and schools.
Teachers with lower averages are asked what they need to improve on to raise scores.
While this is absolutely a question which merits attention- we NEVER look at individual rates. For example, were there 3 kids who had an absentee rate of 34% for the year? Did student A spend 1/2 the year living out of a car? Student B has abuse issues being investigated.
Certainly even the best teacher can make some gains (or stay level) with these situations, there are times the outside variables change the outcome.
Simply put: Correlation does not imply causation, especially when there may be an unknown factor contributing to the outcome.
Teacher A having a poor class overall score does not prove poor teacher quality. (but we all know instances in which it does!)
With these in mind, I do not doubt for an instant that several of my colleagues will cheat on these tests. Until the system is reformatted in such a way that the teachers don’t feel the pressure, it will continue. It is the same as the CEO’s with their big bonuses. When the heat is applied, different actions are taken.
I could list a couple colleagues who we strongly suspect of this. It really is sad, because it is our children who suffer in the end.
As a researcher in the field of incentives, I find these studies interesting in that they often fail to provide a true test of “incentives” vs a test of a unique approach to the application of an incentive program. The studies assumed:
1) that cash is the most effective award for teachers
2) that the plan is best designed by a committee with little expertise in incentive design (and must fit union requirements of equal payout to all participants)
3) that the value of the award was valued by the recipients
4) that the plan was top of mind (promoted) to the participants
5) that the time period was appropriate for this type of incentive plan.
Bottom line: most incentive plans that fail to produce results are the result of two issues: poor design and poor implementation. So we tend to toss the tool because the user is not proficient.
There are teachers who enjoy seeing their wards do well. These category require little or no type of motivation to do well or even better.
To those who it is not a ‘calling’, either intrinsic or extrinsic motivation can only toss them here and there in a little while.However,appreciating performing terachers in whatever way appropriate to any school manager is good.
Like in our spectacular Nigerian case, I think better incentives in the area of on-the-job retraining should be encouraged highly especially to those who enjoy seeing their wards doing well and are actually working hard to achieve this.
Interestingly, some of Dr. Fryer’s earlier work suggests that, with respect to student achievement, it may be better to create an incentive structure for students rather than teachers and make the agency effect more direct. I am including a link to the “Time” article that described this interesting research.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1978589,00.html
While Prof. Fryer is an economist by training, and much of his work is tested and proved in many cities in the country, the lack of success in NYC proves that these approaches may be transferable but generally not generalziable; due to factors and variables that are out of social scientists’ controls. Nevertheless, a thorough review of organizational theories would have shed some light on the motivation of employees in an organizational system. As an educator, my greatest concern is reducing the education of children to factory widgets, but the “Hawthorne Effect” was a seminal study on motivation in the 1920s and 30s. In the study by Mayo, which resulted in factory employees producing more by the mere presence of “being singled out, being more involved, and made to feel important, rather than by giving more or less break times, more illumination, changing work times, etc.. This study along with theories of Maslow- states that it is more essential to satisfy psychological and social needs rather than offer remuneration as reward. Addtionally, a review of Mcgregor’s Theory X an Y, suggest that some individuals are self-motivated and assumes that others are resistant and apathetic about change or work.
This is a link that may offer some levity.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/164944/december-01-2008/roland-fryer
Thanks for sharing this with us. I do agree that teaching is not all about money. We need an encouraging and supporting environment by parents, teachers, policy makers and community to provide pupils with good basics and guidance. These takes good planning by the policy makers, so that teachers can put them in practice ASAP without much time wasted in confusion and solving teething problem as the stds are the ultimate victimes. Teachers should spent more time teaching and guiding the pupils with their heart in the class if we were to see substantial improvement in the pupils. The focus of the teachers are very important.
People who join the teaching profession fall into 3 categories:
1) Those who are passionate about teaching and nurturing and changing lives. Money is not going to change this group to do better because they are already pouring out their heart and life.
2) “Those who can’t, teach” group. Money is not going to make any difference here, obviously.
3) Those who use the teaching profession as a stepping stone or transit to their real destination. Money might have an effect on this group but it would be very slight because their sights are set faraway and once they “smell” their ship coming in…even if it is a mere silhouette on the horizon…they’re gonna pack their bags and run.
It is my opinion that the evidence is still out on this topic. First, if the performance based pay is actually based on incentivizing teachers to participate in school structural changes to support student achievement growth then it may work. It takes a lot to get teachers to actually change an education paradigm in a school; we’ve been doing this public school education ‘thing’ essentially the same way for fifty years! Our incentive pay plan provides the professional development and other forms of support to change the instructional model. The initial data is very promising.
I know this is provocative but if intrinsic motivation is so natural and normal why does it take so much effort to foster it in so many environments? While individuals who are intrinsically motivated have a hard time understanding those who are not, I am not so sure that most people exhibit much ‘drive’ in any domain of their lives.
Ask your family, friends or peers what in their lives they do because they are driven. Ask them about the activities they participate in where they work towards constant improvement. Ask about those activities they would participate in even if they were not obligated to or were paid for doing it. I have done this and not one in a three dozen ever identifies anything. Most even admit that their care for their children is based largely on a feeling of obligation.
I want to believe that we can create an environment where individuals’ intrinsic motivation and passion thrive. I hope we can find a formula for this. I just am not convinced that everyone is as amenable to this type of motivation as those who truly are!
One thing missing from the discussions on student performance is the question of the accuracy of the tests that seek to measure it. Those who created the value added models cautioned against using them for teacher evaluations since, among other problems, they were not designed to be used that way. Their reservations on the issue have fallen short of the actual problems that have occurred, such as the recent debacle in NYC where the VAM’s produced no useful data at all. How can merit pay be determined with no data to base it on? The insult of it’s failure then becomes an acute disincentive to remain in the profession when it’s continued use is insisted on by those with interests other than what is best for schools.