Letter to the Editor, published in the Columbus Dispatch, July 15, 2014
I have been a resident of Reynoldsburg for nearly two decades, have covered the education beat for two weeklies for 15 years and am the daughter of an educator.
I have been a resident of Reynoldsburg for nearly two decades, have covered the education beat for two weeklies for 15 years and am the daughter of an educator.
Only once before have I ever seen a situation as dire as it is in Reynoldsburg. Our district has been at the forefront of a number of innovative practices, but a recent contract proposal by the district has only led to low morale, poor relations and a recent exodus by teachers from the district. And nothing is even in writing yet.
At issue is the idea of merit pay, which has been dumped by major corporations because that carrot did little to generate results. In fact, it discouraged collaboration and pitted people against one another.
In a piece appearing in The Washington Post, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has been a major contributor to education and the Common Core, admitted he failed with experiments on how to evaluate educators.
Microsoft recently dumped its stack-ranking system, saying it did not encourage collaboration. Edward Lampert tried it at Sears, where it was a failure. According to Education Week, the National Center for Performance Incentives conducted a trial of teacher merit pay. After three years, researchers concluded that teachers in the treatment group did not get better results than those in the control group, who were not in line to get hefty bonuses.
Merit pay is not the answer in attracting good teachers. It creates competition among teachers rather than cooperation; it discourages teachers to take on the the most-challenging students; and it fails to recognize outside influences like family and economic situations.
These are not dresses on a hanger, drills on a shelf, or software on a rack.These are our children. Merit pay is not the answer to attracting and keeping quality teachers.
Deborah Dunlap
Reynoldsburg
At issue is the idea of merit pay, which has been dumped by major corporations because that carrot did little to generate results. In fact, it discouraged collaboration and pitted people against one another.
In a piece appearing in The Washington Post, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has been a major contributor to education and the Common Core, admitted he failed with experiments on how to evaluate educators.
Microsoft recently dumped its stack-ranking system, saying it did not encourage collaboration. Edward Lampert tried it at Sears, where it was a failure. According to Education Week, the National Center for Performance Incentives conducted a trial of teacher merit pay. After three years, researchers concluded that teachers in the treatment group did not get better results than those in the control group, who were not in line to get hefty bonuses.
Merit pay is not the answer in attracting good teachers. It creates competition among teachers rather than cooperation; it discourages teachers to take on the the most-challenging students; and it fails to recognize outside influences like family and economic situations.
These are not dresses on a hanger, drills on a shelf, or software on a rack.These are our children. Merit pay is not the answer to attracting and keeping quality teachers.
Deborah Dunlap
Reynoldsburg