Merit Pay Risky Behavior
INTRODUCTION
The focus of my paper is on how incentives like merit pay can lead to risky behaviors and bad outcomes in our educational system. It is my belief that incentives like higher pay alone is never sufficient enough to motivate teachers or anyone with a real passion for their vocation to perform better. I find myself in the court of public opinion that incentives like money are a short time motivator for most people. I have looked at research material and information from experiments and initiatives to implement incentives like merit pay or pay for performance into educational systems over almost three centuries and I believe it supports my point of view on this subject. With that said I believe I've provided my prospective on the …show more content…
It is my belief that people react to incentives like higher pay very differently. I find myself in the court of public opinion that teachers are good people with a real passion for their vocation. That normal power and money, money and power mean nothing to them when it comes to performing better. In situations like Merit Pay systems, they have been known to encourage behaviors like dishonesty and corruption. To achieve the benefits of Merit pay or pay for performance programs, educators are financially motivated to lie about testing results and have legitimate suspicions of principal favoritism. History has shown us that the teachers who were caught cheating blamed the administration for the inordinate pressure to meet unrealistic goals and expectations set by the district. Some said they faced severe consequences such as a negative evaluation or termination if they didn't cheat. To protect their jobs, win favor and bonuses, administrators have been known to create a culture of fear, intimidation among employees and conspiracy of silence in their school system that kept many teachers from speaking freely about …show more content…
Here are a few specific highly publicized and very well documented incidents deemed as failures or bad outcomes associated with educational system merit pay or pay for performance programs.
England (1710)
In the earliest recorded educational system merit pay or pay for performance programs that I could find, teachers and administrators became obsessed with financial rewards when their pay was connected to their students' test scores on examinations in reading, writing, and arithmetic. This resulted in curriculums being narrowed to include only the testable basics. Teaching stopped as teachers found that drill and rote repetition produced the ''best" results. Both teachers and administrators falsified results, and because they did the plan was ultimately dropped.
WASHINGTON DC PUBLIC
The focus of my paper is on how incentives like merit pay can lead to risky behaviors and bad outcomes in our educational system. It is my belief that incentives like higher pay alone is never sufficient enough to motivate teachers or anyone with a real passion for their vocation to perform better. I find myself in the court of public opinion that incentives like money are a short time motivator for most people. I have looked at research material and information from experiments and initiatives to implement incentives like merit pay or pay for performance into educational systems over almost three centuries and I believe it supports my point of view on this subject. With that said I believe I've provided my prospective on the …show more content…
It is my belief that people react to incentives like higher pay very differently. I find myself in the court of public opinion that teachers are good people with a real passion for their vocation. That normal power and money, money and power mean nothing to them when it comes to performing better. In situations like Merit Pay systems, they have been known to encourage behaviors like dishonesty and corruption. To achieve the benefits of Merit pay or pay for performance programs, educators are financially motivated to lie about testing results and have legitimate suspicions of principal favoritism. History has shown us that the teachers who were caught cheating blamed the administration for the inordinate pressure to meet unrealistic goals and expectations set by the district. Some said they faced severe consequences such as a negative evaluation or termination if they didn't cheat. To protect their jobs, win favor and bonuses, administrators have been known to create a culture of fear, intimidation among employees and conspiracy of silence in their school system that kept many teachers from speaking freely about …show more content…
Here are a few specific highly publicized and very well documented incidents deemed as failures or bad outcomes associated with educational system merit pay or pay for performance programs.
England (1710)
In the earliest recorded educational system merit pay or pay for performance programs that I could find, teachers and administrators became obsessed with financial rewards when their pay was connected to their students' test scores on examinations in reading, writing, and arithmetic. This resulted in curriculums being narrowed to include only the testable basics. Teaching stopped as teachers found that drill and rote repetition produced the ''best" results. Both teachers and administrators falsified results, and because they did the plan was ultimately dropped.
WASHINGTON DC PUBLIC