Dissecting the idea of "merit pay" for teachers

Another hot-button topic in K-12 education is "merit pay" for teachers.  Like many "reforms" being experimented with in our public schools, this is an idea borrowed from the corporate world.  And like so many of the corporate reforms, it's ill-suited for public schools.

Traditionally teachers were paid largely based on experience and education.  But there is legislation pending our state House of Representatives which would shift the focus of teacher pay to "performance."  Ostensibly, this means how well their students perform on standardized tests.  The idea behind this idea is straightforward - it incentivizes teachers to produce high test scores.  The teachers most successful at producing high test scores get bonuses.  Teachers in the middle get nothing extra.  Teachers on the bottom get laid off.

Empirically we know this idea does not work in education.  Diane Ravitch, a public school advocate and education historian, summarizes:

Merit pay is a zombie idea. It fails and fails and fails again, but legislators just want more of it.

This teacher explains why he doesn’t want it.

There are many reasons to oppose merit pay.

1. It doesn’t work. It failed just in the past few years in Nashville, where the bonus for higher scores was $15,000. It failed in New York City, it failed in Chicago.

2. It has never worked. It has been tried and failed repeatedly for nearly 100 years.

3. Modern social science says that it will never work, that when you pay people a bonus to do what they want to do you actually decrease their motivation. [Teacher: why I oppose merit pay, Diane Ravitch's Blog, July 1, 2013.]

In Michigan, we have done more investigation into this idea.  In 2011 as part of Michigan's teacher tenure reforms, the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness was established. The MCEE was a temporary commission with five voting members.  Republican Gov. Rick Snyder appointed three, and Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, and Speaker of the House Jase Bolger, R-Marshall each appointed one.  The group was tasked with judging how the state should evaluate teachers.  The MCEE emphatically rejected "merit pay":

... the report explicitly advises against using teacher evaluations as a basis for determining merit pay under a "pay for performance" system.

"Educator evaluations must not be used to determine merit pay," the report states. "There is insufficient evidence to support pay for performance programs at this time. Research in education and other fields suggests that performance-related pay and the monitoring systems that come with it can backfire, decreasing motivation and quality performance." ['Pay for performance' not recommended in Michigan teacher evaluation group's report, MLive.com, July 24, 2013.]

Just intuitively there are a lot of problems with this idea:

... What will the measurement be? Will this cause even more reliance on testing? Will more teachers teach to the test? What about elective teachers and classes where there simply is no standardized test? (Or will we simply continue to eliminate the arts and other electives from the curriculum?) Who will get to teach the honors classes, in which students will naturally score the highest on state tests? Who would be foolish enough to seek out struggling learners or high-poverty districts?

Perhaps most concerning of all, merit pay and performance-based layoffs will inadvertently create a competitive culture among teachers, quietly pitting them against one another. Why would a teacher want to share his phenomenal “highly effective” lessons with his colleague if he is now competing with her for a job? Under new Michigan legislation that creates performance-based layoffs, this is an obvious outcome. ... Teachers are not salespeople, competing with colleagues for who can sell the most of a commodity. ... [Why Merit Pay Doesn’t Work, Kristy Placido, July 15, 2013.]

This might be the key reason why the idea of teacher merit pay is so hopelessly flawed.  There are a lot of reasons to choose teaching as a career, but getting rich isn't one of them.  People might choose to be teachers because they love teaching, they love kids, they value public service, they value a reliable income and reasonable work schedule, or similar reasons.  But a person who is mainly motivated to accumulate money is unlikely to be teaching to begin with.  Most teachers need neither a carrot nor a stick to be motivated to do their job.  They just need the tools and the space to do it.

Deeper look at K12 Inc.

We have mentioned the for-profit cyberschool company K12 Inc. in passing before (at least here and here).  Although K12 Inc. had been operating in Michigan, it wasn't clear that it had a huge number of students or that it was marketing heavily here.  It's now clear that K12 Inc. is making a massive marketing push in Michigan, so we want to tell you more about this company.  In short, even if the concept of cyberschools was something worth consideration, K12 Inc. has a track record of shoddy instruction, poor oversight, and rampant misuse of public funds.

Cyberschool operated by K12 Inc. is exactly what it sounds like - instead of going to a school with other children and a teacher, the child works from a computer at home.  Because K12 Inc. operates as a charter school in Michigan, each child K12 Inc. signs up as a customer means it gets to charge the state that child's per pupil allowance.  So, instead of that public money - tax dollars - going into a public school in our communities, those tax dollars go to this for-profit company which was trading at 31.07 on the NYSE as of August 9, 2013. Yahoo Finance.

It is almost certainly true that there is a niche of students who might benefit from an alternative school setting.  But K12 Inc. isn't marketing to a niche of students.  It's marketing to every student.  We previously took K12 Inc.'s quiz to tell us whether K12 Inc. was a good fit for a hypothetical child.  We described a special needs child who is happy in school, and who needs structure but with parents unwilling to provide it.  The quiz told us "K12 is an excellent option for your and your child."  In fact, we couldn't come up with any combination of answers that produced any other response.  Online schools rapidly expanding, spending tax dollars on marketing. Okemos Parents for Schools, July 26, 2013.  But whether or not what K12 Inc. does could be a good idea in theory, we know that it is producing terrible results and has been plagued with scandal everywhere it has operated in the country. 

Last year a former K12 Inc. teacher, Melony Black, spoke about her experience working for K12 Inc. where her massive workload left her with less than 2 minutes for each student each day:

“I started the year with 287 students in my seven high school English classes,” Melony said. “I was teaching three sections of lower-level English students who struggled with reading and writing.” K12, Inc. advertises that they will meet the needs of struggling students, and that each student will receive individualized attention. Yet, 287 students is nearly triple the student load of a traditional high school teacher.

How is ONE teacher supposed to give adequate, individualized attention to 287 students? “I asked how I would manage that many students, especially in a school that advertises itself as providing individual support,” Melony said. COVA administrators told Melony that the hours a traditional teacher would spend creating lessons and attending meetings would be her time to grade student work.

K12’s lack of teacher meetings and their pre-packaged, canned lesson plans are supposed to allow teachers adequate time for students. How much time, exactly? A 40-hour week divided by 287 students gives each student less than ten minutes per week - not even TWO MINUTES PER DAY - of the teacher’s attention. That is, assuming there aren’t any other duties for K12’s teachers. [K12, Inc. online schools: a view from the inside, examiner.com, September 5, 2012.]

Black also described a massive dropout rate.  It was explained to her that K12 Inc. had a "planned dropout" rate of about a third.  Of course, so long as the students were logged in for "count day," K12 Inc. was paid in full.  Black also worked with a "credit recovery" program for kids who had failed a class.  But, kids slipped through the cracks even more quickly with this program. 

“Three-quarters of my credit recovery kids never logged in, never completed any work, never answered their emails or phone calls, yet they remained on my class rosters,” she said. “I began wondering about the state-mandated hours for students at the high school level. No one is monitoring this as far as I can see.” [Id.]

So how is all that working out for students? Not good.

In 2011 the New York Times spent several months investigating online schools generally, and K12 Inc. specifically.  Their conclusion: ". . . a portrait emerges of a company that tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards."  Profits and questions at online charter schools, New York Times, December 12, 2011.

Since then some harder data has become available:

Using Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) state data, state performance rankings, and graduation rates, the researchers showed that full-time virtual schools lag significantly behind traditional brick-and-mortar schools. In particular, only 27.7 percent of K12 Inc. online schools met AYP in 2010-2011, compared to 52 percent of public schools. Of the 36 K12 Inc. schools that were assigned a school rating by state education authorities, only seven (19.4 percent) had ratings that clearly indicated satisfactory status. [From Junk Bonds to Junk Schools: Cyber Schools Fleece Taxpayers for Phantom Students and Failing Grades, PRWatch.org, Oct. 2, 2013.]

Given the roots of K12 Inc., it's practices and resultant student outcomes are unsurprising.  A public school operated by a locally elected school board only has one goal - educating students.  To be sure, schools differ from place to place, reflecting both the challenges and values of the community.  But in the end, a public school will always be about giving kids the best education - whatever that means to the local electorate.  But K12 Inc. has a much different history and set of incentives.

... Not surprising for an educational model kicked off with a $10 million investment from junk-bond king Michael Milken.

Milken was the Wall Street financier who virtually invented junk-bonds -- high-risk securities that were used to leverage hostile buyouts in the "go-go" 1980s. Milken came to symbolize Wall Street excess, serving as inspiration for the Michael Douglas character Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street. Milken spent almost two years in a federal penitentiary for securities fraud.

After he was released from prison, Milken set his sights on the $600 billion public education "market," forming new companies including Knowledge Universe and Knowledge Learning, parent company of the KinderCare child care chain. With his $10 million stake in K12 Inc., Milken aided one of his Vice Presidents and another junk dealer, Ron Packard, who specialized in mergers and acquisitions for Goldman Sachs back in the '80s. [Id.]

K12 Inc. is heavily incentivize to capture as much of the education "market" as possible. Normal folks call the education "market" our children.  So, here is what capturing them means:

An analysis by USA TODAY finds that online charter schools have spent millions in taxpayer dollars on advertising over the past five years, a trend that shows few signs of abating. The primary and high schools -- operated online by for-profit companies but with local taxpayer support -- are buying TV, radio, newspaper and Internet ads to attract students, even as brick-and-mortar public schools in the districts they serve face budget crunches.

... 

The USA TODAY analysis finds that 10 of the largest for-profit operators have spent an estimated $94.4 million on ads since 2007. The largest, Virginia-based K12 Inc., has spent about $21.5 million in just the first eight months of 2012. [Online schools spend millions to attract students, USA Today, November 28, 2012.]

All of this is public money which would be spent educating children if it had gone to a public school.  There is a lot more information out there about K12 Inc., and we'll be back with more in the future.

What's behind the movement toward meaningless school ratings?

The state's new color-coded school rating system debuted with a resounding thud.  The mediocre to failing scores it assigned to districts and individual schools in Ann Arbor, Okemos, East Lansing and other high-performing schools was so patently absurd, many reacted with disinterest.  After all, who would pay any attention to a system which is so obviously getting it wrong?  However, systems like Michigan's with a bias to favor small charter schools have cropped up in other states as well, and in at least one case, the bias was proven to be by design.

The Associated Press uncovered emails which showed Indiana's chief education official rigged their system to protect a particular charter school:

INDIANAPOLIS — Former Indiana and current Florida schools chief Tony Bennett built his national star by promising to hold "failing" schools accountable. But when it appeared an Indianapolis charter school run by a prominent Republican donor might receive a poor grade, Bennett's education team frantically overhauled his signature "A-F" school grading system to improve the school's marks.

Emails obtained by The Associated Press show Bennett and his staff scrambled last fall to ensure influential donor Christel DeHaan's school received an "A," despite poor test scores in algebra that initially earned it a "C."

"They need to understand that anything less than an A for Christel House compromises all of our accountability work," Bennett wrote in a Sept. 12 email to then-chief of staff Heather Neal, who is now Gov. Mike Pence's chief lobbyist. [Tony Bennett, Former Indiana School Superintendent, Changed Top GOP Donor's School's Grade, Huffington Post, July 29, 2013.]

Like the Indiana system, Michigan's system has a heavy bias to small charter schools.  According to analysis by education blogger Martha Toth, Michigan's system scored more than 97 percent of districts and schools "yellow" or lower ... failing grades.  Report Cards that Offer Zero Useful Information, Education Matters, Sept. 3, 2013.  Of the very few "green" schools, many qualified merely by being a tiny charter school:

Of the 135 green schools, 41 (nearly one-third) got “zero of a possible zero points” — so how is it that they are rated green? Most are so designated on the basis of three-year participation rates (how many children actually took the tests) and “compliance factors” (planning and reporting requirements that earn no points). They have no student test scores because all their grade cohorts are under 30 pupils — a prime indicator that they are likely to be charter schools. Other “green” schools with very low point totals got them for such factors as student attendance. [Id.]

While Michigan's system may be peculiar, it's certainly not unique.  And although the results are clearly meaningless, this is an issue that warrants close scrutiny from public school advocates.

The online education model failing in higher ed

There is a troubling trend of converting K-12 education in Michigan into online education, and replacing teachers with computers.  There is now evidence this model is failing even for university students. 

Governor Snyder made national news with his secret group which was working to create a "value school" model for public education in Michigan, and cut thousands out of the investment in each child with a voucher program.  Secret "Skunk Works" program aims for "Voucher-like" program for Michigan Schools, Okemos Parents for Schools, April 19, 2013.  Last year's budget also included a provision which will force public schools to pay for two online courses per semester for any child in grades 5-12, with no meaningful oversight by public schools.  "Voucher for Vendors," what it is, and why you should speak out against it, Okemos Parents for Schools, April 14, 2013.  Although there was never any data or research to support these radical changes, there is now data to show these models are failing even with university age students. 

Millions have signed up for online courses sponsored by elite colleges, yet they report high dropout rates and disappointing student performance among those who stick it out. A quietly released report last week on a partnership between San Jose State University and major course provider Udacity found that disadvantaged kids performed particularly poorly and students found the courses confusing. Collective statistics aren’t available, but by one tracker’s account most “massive online open courses” — known as MOOCs — have completion rates of less than 10 percent.

...

“Quality, quality and quality,” [Adam Sitze, an assistant professor of law, jurisprudence and social thought at Amherst College] said. “The elephant in the room with online learning has been that these courses don’t equate with the quality in face-to-face courses.”  [Online courses don't live up to hype, Politico.com, September 18, 2013 (emphasis added).]

We recently wrote about the flood of cyberschool marketing all over the state.  Online schools rapidly expanding, spending tax dollars on marketing, Okemos Parents for Schools, July 26, 2013.  Online ads, TV commercials and direct mail have been targeting Okemos as described in our post.  Now road side signs are popping up in Okemos as well. 

As funding has decreased, schools have been plunged into deficit

Chart from Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities.

There are lots of claims out of Lansing about increasing funding to K-12 education.  They aren't true.  Funding to K-12 education has been devastated in recent years.  Because of Proposal A (see background information here), important operating expenses such as teacher salaries cannot be paid for with locally raised money.  The fallout is apparent in districts all over the state.

First, the false claims of increased funding to K-12 education.  They're not true:

Michigan has cut investment in K-12 schools by 9 percent since 2008, a deeper cut than 33 other states, according to a report released by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan policy research organization based in Washington, D.C. [Study: Michigan cut school funding more than 33 other states since '08, Detroit News, September 12, 2013]

Since 2008, Michigan has slashed an inflation adjusted $572 per student. Last year alone Michigan cut K-12 funding another half a percent.  Most States Funding Schools Less Than Before the Recession, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 12, 2013.  The modest cuts this year come after massive cuts at the beginning of the Snyder administration. 

Schools all over Michigan have built new buildings and are spending money on technology.  But these expenditures can be paid for with locally raised revenue.  Because of Proposal A, public schools cannot pay their operating expenses with locally raised revenue.  That money must come from the state's per pupil allowance.  Schools are feeling the sting of these cuts.

Ann Arbor has some of the state's best public schools.  But cuts are hitting Ann Arbor hard as they are laying off teachers and class sizes are pushing 40 students:

[James] Svensson, a clinical social worker at the University of Michigan, said his daughter came home from the first day of school "shocked" at how many students she was sharing class with.

In her accelerated geometry class, there are 38 students in her section, Svensson said. In another section, there are 41 students. History and German classes at Pioneer are also seeing class sizes larger than 38 students.

“There’s only so much time a teacher has,” Svensson said, stating he fears that the quality of education at AAPS will slip as a result of the staff cuts. [Ann Arbor schools coping with standing-room-only classes, smaller staff, The Ann Arbor News, Sept. 10, 2013.]

In all, 56 school districts are now operating with budget deficits.  There are urban schools included.  But there are also rural and suburban communities which have traditionally invested in their schools such as Brighton, Mason County Eastern, and Pinckney Community Schools. Pinckney, got 10 percent across the board pay reductions to make up the deficit, but the state rejected the plan, saying 10 percent pay reductions were not enough.

[Superintendent Rick Todd] said fixing the deficit is challenging because the district is losing students. The district has seen its enrollment decline by 1,000 in the past decade.

The other frustration came when the state cut its per-pupil funding by $470 per student two years ago. Pinckney took a roughly $1.8 million hit to its revenues with that reduction.

“That put the nail in the coffin,” Todd said. [Pinckney deficit plan denied, Livingston Daily.com, Sept. 7, 2013.]

All this after the state dissolved the Saginaw Buena Vista School district and the Inkster school districts. Snyder signs bill that spells end for Buena Vista and Inkster schools, MLive.com, July 2, 2013.  The state also effectively dissolved the Muskegon Height School District as it fired every employee in the district and handed over management to a charter company.

Okemos, East Lansing, Haslett have all been at the top of state, national rankings

In light of the state's new color-coded rankings which scored Okemos and other high-performing schools with average to failing rankings, Okemos scores second to bottom on state's new scale, Okemos Parents for Schools, September 3, 2013, I thought we would emphasize some of the recent good news for area schools.

Okemos got a lot of great news this year about how its high school was performing.  U.S. News and World Report ranked Okemos as the 7th best high school in Michigan.  The other nine schools in the top 10 are public schools like Okemos, not charter schools.  East Lansing, Okemos high schools among top ten in state, according to U.S. News & World Report rankings, MLive.com, April 24, 2013.  Okemos was also ranked the 7th on U.S. News and World Report's NATIONAL ranking of  science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) schools.  U.S, News and World Report explains these rankings:

To determine the top science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) schools, U.S. News looked at the top 500 public schools from our latest Best High Schools rankings, and then evaluated their students' participation and success in Advanced Placement (AP®) science and math tests. [U.S. News and World Report]

Yes, only six schools in the entire country performed better on AP STEM tests than Okemos High School.  Overall, Okemos got rated with a "Gold Medal" by U.S. News and World Report.

Of course, every district is different, and some districts face greater challenges than others.  So, simply comparing standardized test scores may not be a fair indicator of how well a school is performing its core function of education.  In January of this year, Bridge Magazine released a ranking system to account for that discrepancy, a "value-added" index:

Unlike traditional rankings that focus solely on student achievement, often on standardized tests, the Bridge rankings include an adjustment for student family income, which is often a predictor of academic achievement, according to Bridge.

The new ranking system is essentially designed to test overachievement – or the expectation of each school's performance against the actual performance. [Okemos schools earn top honors under new rankings released by Bridge Magazine, MLive.com, January 10, 2013]

Okemos ranked 9th in the state by this measure as well.  Bridge Magazine

East Lansing High School also received a "Gold Medal" rating from U.S. News and World Report.  U.S. News and World Report - East Lansing.  East Lansing also ranked one higher than Okemos in the state high school rankings, 6th, and ranked 65th NATIONALLY in AP scoring in STEM classes.

Haslett also ranked near the top of the state in Bridge Magazine's "value-added" index, coming in at 24th. 

Okemos scores second lowest rating on state's new scale

In mid-August the state rolled out a new color-coded rating system for public schools and charters.  Under the new system, public schools will be held accountable for student performance in cyber school taught subjects while the public schools have no oversight capability. 

Under the new model, every school receives a color on a scale of green, lime-green, yellow, orange, or red - in descending order:

A school earns a color based on the number of points it amasses — two points for each goal met, , one point for each goal met by demonstrating improvement, and zero points if the goal isn’t met at all. Schools that earn 85% or more of the points possible are assigned a green color. To get lime green, they have to earn 70% to 84% of their points; yellow, 60% to 69%; orange, 50% to 59%; and red, below 50%. Michigan to debut color-coded system for measuring school performance, Detroit Free Press, Aug. 19, 2013.

You can see how Okemos scored on the state's Accountability scorecard. As a district, Okemos scored "Orange," the second to lowest rating.  However, every building scored "Yellow," one step higher.  Yet, in every category, every building scored "Green."  How can that be?

We think education blogger Martha Toth has it right.  She says "The short answer is that the system is rigged to produce failure. And that is exactly what it did."  Report Cards that Offer Zero Useful Information, Education Matters, Sept. 3, 2013.

Ms. Toth has an extremely detailed breakdown of the system.  She explains it tracks performance in categories such as test participation rate, attendance rate, graduation rate, and compliance with school improvement, educator effectiveness, among groups such as students with disabilities, English Language–learners, economically disadvantaged students, the bottom 30% and ethnic groups. The article is worth the read, but here are some highlights:

• 97 percent of Michigan districts/schools received "Yellow" or lower, or a "failing" score.
• Of the 135 schools with "Green" ratings, 41 received "zero out of zero" points because they are so small as to escape being scored.
• "Other “green” schools with very low point totals got them for such factors as student attendance. You will note that student attendance, test participation rates, school improvement planning and teacher evaluation reporting are ALL FACTORS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT"
• The system requires demonstration of yearly progress, when students are only tested only three years.  "Students who were not proficient in science in fifth grade will be unable to show improvement until the eighth grade test. For three years they WILL fail to achieve the required incremental progress."

Importantly, Ms. Toth points out:

Another wrinkle — or perhaps “monkey wrench” is more evocative here — in the system is that cyber schools can now provide one-third or more of educational classes for grades five through 12, but the home school district will be held accountable for student achievement results. Let me repeat: traditional school districts will be punished for the failures of on-line schools over which they have zero control.  Id.

You might recall that public schools will now be forced to pay for cyber school classes for students with public money, and be forced to accept whatever grade the cyber school gives.  We wrote about this here, here, and here.  Under this new color coded scheme, even if a student takes every math class in grades 5-12 from a cyber school, the student's public school will be held accountable for their performance.