While the Chicago Public Schools, CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel undoubtedly want to provide all students with quality seats, using the very public contract negotiations and the contentious practice of teacher merit pay will not achieve this goal. The Chicago Public Schools and its administration make the false assumption that money can solve their problems, this in the face of a projected gaping budget shortfall.
Merit pay has long been a polarizing issue in public education, and there is little empirical or practical data to support the use of such programs in our schools. Last summer, the Atlanta schools once hailed as an example of the benefits of merit pay, uncovered a massive cheating scandal on the part of teachers and administrators to boost test scores. In other urban districts such as New York City, there was a lack of understanding and buy-in among teachers, and so the motivational power of the incentive was lessened.
Asking teachers to account for many students who have inconsistent attendance, poor literacy and problem-solving skills, a negative view of education and, perhaps, volatile lives outside of the classroom is illogical and unsustainable. Standardized tests and their correlation to teacher pay will skew instruction to drills and test preparation and away from the critical, analytical and complex thinking required for today’s 21st-century jobs.
Additionally this instruction is at the expense of the host of other skills teachers are expected to deliver: character development, personal health and well-being, the sciences and history.
The implementation of merit pay is moving our schools dangerously close to a corporate model of education, which looks to incentivize performance and focuses too heavily on some outcomes and not enough on others. Teachers, who naturally care about student well-being and achievement, will devote already precious time and energy to those skills being rewarded, and away from other equally important skills that are not rewarded.
— Katherine McNealy, Chicago Public Schools teacher, Chicago
