Study Shows Teacher Bonuses Did Not Boost Student Achievement In Tennessee Schools.

I’m going to be posting things that I read or hear about education.  I subscribe to NEA’s daily email news, so much will come from there.  Feel free to post comments about these articles on my blog.  Here's today's "big news."

Study Shows Teacher Bonuses Did Not Boost Student Achievement In Tennessee Schools.

The AP (9/22) reports that a three-year study "conducted in the metropolitan Nashville school system by Vanderbilt University's National Center on Performance Incentives" found that student performance did not increase when teachers were offered "big bonuses." The teachers could earn "bonuses of up to $15,000 a year for improved test scores." But, researchers said, third through fifth graders whose math teachers were offered the bonuses "registered the same gains on standardized exams as those whose [math] teachers were" not offered the bonuses. The AP adds that half of the 300 teachers who "started out in the study...were eligible for the bonuses." Each year, about 40 teachers got bonuses.

        The Washington Post (9/23, Anderson) reports that the studies authors and "other experts described [it] as the first scientifically rigorous review of merit pay in the United States." The Post adds that "there were no additional variables in the experiment: no professional development, mentoring or other elements meant to affect test scores." USA Today (9/23, Connell) notes, "The study was conducted from 2006 to 2009 in partnership with the nonprofit RAND Corporation. A local industrialist and Vanderbilt benefactor, Orrin Ingram, put up the nearly $1.3 million in bonuses."

So what does this mean?  I would question whether 3 years is enough to prove anything, but perhaps that isn’t an issue if just the incentive of earning more money would be enough to get teachers to teach to the test better.  I think teachers are already doing as much as they can to teach to these tests; the problem is that the tests aren’t valid indicators of achievement.  Kids learn at different rates and some don't test well on standardized tests no matter how well they learn.  I think it's time we started realizing that -- well, or making sure the "big shots" in charge realize that and act on it.  

Teachers don't usually teach for the pay; we teach because we love learning and kids.  I started teaching as a mission to help kids be ready for college because I didn't feel all that prepared for college even though I was an A student in high school.  Most of us didn't go into it for the money, so merit pay isn't going to make us better teachers.