Why merit pay isn’t a motivater
Posted by aphillieteacher on March 20, 2011
I present two good examples of why merit pay for teachers isn’t a good idea.
First – A real quote by student taking her benchmark math test:
Miss, I don’t pay attention in class so I don’t know how they expect me to know this.*
Based on that statement and her less than wonderful score on benchmark tests, this girl’s math teacher should be denied salary increments and/or bonus. She doesn’t pay attention in class. This is his fault. (yes of course I’m kidding)
Second: If notes from the field aren’t enough, how about some actual MIT research on rewards and human motivation:
Summary: there will always be a few things standing in the way of teachers earning merit pay rewards
- kids who have no intention of learning and are offended when held accountable
- teachers being human, they react like other humans when it comes to high stake rewards (massively more bananas do not = massively better performance)
* I’m thinking of getting a tshirt saying that
