Fighting for Equity in Education
//It seems that performance pay based on gains in student achievement may not be so good at identifying good teachers as its advocates claim.
It has been delivered a body blow by a major new study published in the United States. The study shows that “value-added” methods for determining the effectiveness of classroom teachers are built on very shaky assumptions and may be highly unreliable and misleading. Continue reading “Performance Pay Schemes Are Unreliable and Misleading”
//The subject today is merit pay. This is an important topic because it has become clear that President Obama has decided to hang his hat on this idea.
It has not yet been explained just what he means by merit pay. Does he mean that teachers should be paid more for teaching in what is euphemistically called “hard-to-staff” schools? Or paid more for teaching in areas where there are shortages, like certain kinds of special education or subjects such as math and science? Or paid more for mentoring other teachers? Or paid more for teaching longer days?
I would call such compensation “performance pay,” rather than “merit pay,” because teachers are paid more for doing more.
//It is with deep regret that the teaching profession in ACT public schools is once again forced into the position of taking industrial action.
The ACT Budget was brought down on 6 June locking in place the cut of 145 teaching positions in schools [120 or 10% from secondary schools] worth $12.5m on an annual basis and 90 positions from the Central Office [a cut of $6m in this financial year and $11.5m in the following financial year]. Further job cuts are planned in the Towards 2020 proposals including 22 senior positions for 2007. Continue reading “Teacher Cuts Undermine Public Education”