Experiment finds merit pay rewards the privileged

I haven't fully sorted out my views on the merit pay issue, but this article caught my eye. It's from the St. Petersburg Times, a newspaper with a top reputation (in an industry collapsing in flames, but that's another post, another blog). Hillsborough County, Fla., launched a real-life experiment with merit pay for teachers. It showed that the overwhelming majority of teachers who qualified for the bonus pay worked in the very most privileged schools — though the system had supposedly been designed not to achieve that effect.

Hillsborough's merit pay experiment benefits affluent schools

Hillsborough will try to even out its experimental system to reward the best teachers

By Letitia Stein, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
Published February 24, 2008

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TAMPA - Hillsborough County's 15,000 teachers agreed last year to be guinea pigs in Florida's controversial experiment with merit pay, an issue dividing politicians and educators across the state.

The results weren't at all what officials expected.

A St. Petersburg Times investigation shows that almost three-fourths of the nearly 5,000 teachers who received merit pay worked at the county's more affluent campuses.

In contrast, only three percent of the educators deemed worthy of the $2,100 bonuses worked in the low-income schools that struggle most, where at least nine in 10 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

And almost two-thirds taught in A-rated schools, where they arguably were least needed.

That wasn't how it was supposed to work. State and local officials promised that the merit pay program, tied heavily to FCAT scores, would reward outstanding teachers wherever they taught, regardless of how advanced or behind their students started out.

"That's a big concern on our part - that we be fair for all teachers," said Hillsborough testing director John Hilderbrand, who said the district tried hard to level the playing field. "I didn't assume there would be a big difference between different types of teachers."

The stunning disparities are fueling difficult questions about teacher quality and equity.

Do the best teachers gravitate to affluent schools, where discipline problems are fewer and support greater? Or are the many failing students at Hillsborough's poorest schools dragging down good teachers?

Hillsborough officials aren't plumbing those questions. Instead, they have responded to teacher concerns by revamping the merit pay program.

Read the rest of the article.