Pay-for-Performance Landmines
When linking teacher pay to student achievement, the devil is in the details. Be aware of potentially explosive issues when exploring a performance pay policy for your district
By Douglas B. Reeves
September 2011
The challenges of evaluating teachers and administrators are well established. The pursuit of “great teaching and leadership” has been at the core of financial incentives associated with the Race to the Top and sub- sequent federal grants that specifically link teacher compensation to student performance.
While linking pay to performance seems obvious to many advocates, the devil is in the details. Here are some potential landmines that boards should consider before adopting a performance pay policy.
1. UNCLEAR PURPOSE FOR EVALUATION
The purpose of evaluation is to provide feedback to improve professional practices of teachers and leaders. The only way that the phrase “needs improvement” can be used without threats of legal action is if you provide the support, coaching, and continuous feedback necessary to improve performance.
If, by contrast, the purpose of evaluation is merely to document poor performance for a tiny fraction of teachers and administrators, then we will have the same muddled system of tolerating mediocrity that we have always had.
An effective system must provide a clear and specific path of performance improvement, such as that used by Kim Marshall and more recently updated at www.MarshallMemo.com. We should expunge ambiguous terms such as “outstanding” or “meets expectations” or “above average” and replace them with clear and specific descriptions of professional performance such as “provides timely, accurate, and constructive feedback to 100 percent of students every week.”
2. EVALUATIONS THAT ARE TOO LATE
Even the most statistically elegant evaluation system means nothing when results are delivered to teachers after it is too late for them to react. Awarding letter grades or labels to schools, teachers, and principals after the year ends is comparable to giving a student a failing grade and never providing the feedback necessary to improve academic performance.
Probationary teachers who provide such late and ineffective feedback would be terminated. Therefore, board members should insist that evaluation policies provide more than a score at the end of the year, but rather provide feedback throughout the year.
It is essential that the final score is not the average of observations throughout the year because this type of system prevents administrators from giving candid and constructive feedback early on. Using the average means administrators will continue to punish teachers in the ninth month of the school year for mistakes that they made in the first month.
In fact, administrators should be encouraged to provide challenging feedback early in the year and teachers should be rewarded for taking that feedback seriously and improving their practice. It is the recognition of improvements and final performance—not the average—that is the best way to encourage a process of continuous improvement.
3. INCONSISTENT LINKS
Many boards are making major changes in teacher evaluation—including the association of student results with teacher compensation—without making similar changes in the way administrators are evaluated. Best practices in leadership assessment should mirror those used in teacher evaluation, providing consistent feedback throughout the year.
More important, a good evaluation system should answer two key questions: Which specific teaching practices in our district are most related to improvements in student learning for our children? Which specific leadership practices in our district are most related to improvements in teaching effectiveness? Only a policy with consistent evaluation of teachers and administrators can address those questions.
4. UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Economic incentives often work in unexpected ways. If your teachers’ primary incentive is high test scores, they might use seniority to migrate away from low-scoring schools, where they are most needed. This explains the consistent trend of schools that are most in need of improvement experiencing the highest turnover of faculty and administrators, and the predominance of first- year teachers at low-performing schools.
If the incentive is based on “improvement”—that is, making a same-student-to-same-student comparison over time—such a policy could provide an inadvertent incentive to ignore the needs of high-mobility students. If the policy only focuses on “tested grades,” then an administrator has an incentive to move highly talented teachers out of the critically important kindergarten and early primary grades into third grade and beyond. This is where test scores affect the careers and compensation of teachers and administrators.
GETTING IT RIGHT
The stakes in teacher and leadership evaluation are enormous, in terms of the financial implications for districts and employees, but also in the morale and professional practices of the people to whom we entrust our children’s education. Take some time to get it right.
When implementing new evaluation policies, consider a transition year in which the new evaluations can be used on a “no fault” basis. This means no fault by administrators who provide feedback that is challenging and no fault by teachers who, rather than grieve a critical evaluation, use it as feedback for improved performance.
Over time, teachers, leaders, and policymakers will see that the best of the new systems will link teaching, leadership, and learning in clear and constructive ways, provide timely information for teachers and administrators, and avoid the unintended consequences that can undermine the progress that improved evaluation systems can offer.