== Merit Pay in Arizona==
State Senator John Huppenthal successfully passed a series of legislation creating merit pay in Arizona. The successful implementations of these bills is credited with establishing Arizona as the only state in the nation where merit pay is widely accepted by teachers, teacher unions, principals, superintendents and school boards.
In 1994, Senator Huppenthal successfully passed legislation initiating an Optional Performance Incentive Program (OPIP) for schools. In 1995, Senator Huppenthal passed legislation expanding the concepts of OPIP into the existing Career Ladder Program. In 1996, Senator Huppenthal amended Proposition 301 to expand merit pay statewide in Arizona.
Following the 1994 legislative session, the Sedona school district, the Joseph City School District and the Tempe Hudson Elementary school implemented the Optional Performance Incentive Program for the 1994/95 school year.
These implementations were based on Senator Huppenthal's review of over 700 research studies contained in the ERIC database, none of which was able to demonstrate a successful implementation of merit pay in education. All of the implementations repeated four types of errors in merit pay. 1) Creating negative interdependence between teachers (helping another teacher be successful results in lower pay to the assistor). 2) A multiplicity of focus effects: a)measured academic gains go up while actual academic gains go down and b) areas being measured go up while areas not being measured go down and 3) rewarding for activities, not performance.
After a review of these studies failed to reveal a successful merit pay formula, Huppenthal examined performance pay plans in successful private sector companies. This examination revealed principles to guide peformance pay for teachers. These principles are implemented in the Sedona School district with the following elements.
Policy Decisions
1. Bonuses and differentiation in bonuses versus differentiation in base pay.
2. Bonuses for District, school, team and or individual performance.
3. Measurement of individual performance through objective measures such as class academic gain, measurement of individual performan through evaluation by principal or measurement of individual performance through peer evaluation.
4. Measurement of school performance through measures such as total performance on norm or criterion referenced tests, measures of academic progress on criterion referenced tests or norm referenced tests, average yearly progress on criterion referenced tests, ratings of school quality by parents, students and teachers or drop-out rates.
5. Benchmark levels for all school performance measures. For example, the percentage of students making one years progress or the average scale score gain per student, the percentage of students exceeding the proficiency standard or the percentage of students meeting the proficiency standard, the percentage of parents rating their child's school excellent, the percentage of parents rating their child's school good or excellent. the percentage of students rating the quality of their education excellent.
1. A bonus for school district performance. This corresponds to a private sector practice of rewarding for company performance. Every teacher receives a bonus for school district performance. This reward connects schools and the district office to enhance a teamwork environment. Senator Huppenthal could not find an implementation anywhere in the United States in 1993 where teachers were being rewarded for measured district performance. This element was so novel that the Sedona district refused to accept in the first year. Sedona insisted on rewards which started at the school level. This approach produced large variation in teacher pay and dissension. This dissension was so severe that Sedona wanted to drop the entire program in year two. Senator Huppenthal met with a group of Sedona teachers and administrators redesigning the program to base 45% of the bonus on district peformance.
2. Reward for customer satisfaction to improve the relationship between schools and parents and students and to influence educational activity in the home. In 1994, Sedona became the first school district in the nation to both have parents rate the quality of their child’s education and to tie this measure into a performance pay system. Sedona also became the first school district in the nation to both have students rate the quality of education and to integrate this measure into a teacher and an employee performance pay system.
3. Reward for school performance to enhance the local incentive for teamwork.
4. Reward for improvement to maximize the rate of change.
5. Measure and reward more frequently to stimulate schools to improve by changing.
6. Measure and keep score in a way that provides a call to action and a call for change. Many schools measure satisfaction, a very low level of perceived quality by parents. This measurement enables principals and superintendents to falsely reassure school boards that everything is going fine. Satisfaction levels by parents range from the mid 90's for lower grades to the 80's for junior and senior years of high school.
7. Measure excellence to call for change and improvement. Nationwide, the Gallup poll of parents estimates that 26 percent of parents rate their child's school an "A". This measure has been flat for 30 years. Measuring, communicating and rewarding for excellence sends a clear signal to teachers that their is substantial room for improvement.
In 1994, 8 percent of parents rated the quality of education excellent at the Sedona high school. Twelve years later, in 2006, steady and gradual improvement had increased this rated excellence to 64 percent.
8. Reward in proportion to measured excellence to avoid the distortions and danger of goal based reward systems. A number of private sector corporations have been destroyed by goal based reward systems.
9. Never reward for raw test scores of norm or criterion referenced tests. These type of reward systems always damage the quality of teaching and inevitably induced a culture of cheating.
10. Use 360 degree review to measure individual performance, encourage cooperation and teamwork and increase job satisfaction. 360 degree review is a method of evaluating teacher performance by which not only a principal is involved but also other teachers. At the Sedona school district, the performance of each teacher is rated by five or more employees of the district.
11. Simplify measures to reduce cost, enable frequency and create clarity.
== Merit Pay in the Mesa School District ==
In the early 1980's Tennessee began a teacher merit pay program titled Career Ladders. This program expanded to 14 states. In the early 1990's research studies questioned the effectiveness of the career ladder program and all fourteen states reported moderate to severe problems with paperwork load and teacher morale at career ladder schools. Reacting to this research and reports from schools, ten states eventually dropped the career ladder program and the other four states froze their programs.
In 1995, State Senator John Huppenthal successfully introduced and passed legislation allowing the Mesa School district to redesign their career ladder program based on the concepts of the Optional Performance Incentive program. In a two week negotiation taking place in the summer of 1995, Mesa school board President, Mesa Superintendent James Zaharis, Mesa Career Ladder Director Virginia Guy, Mesa Education Association President Nancy Rifleman, State Senator John Huppenthal and numerous Mesa principals and classroom teaches redesigned the Mesa compensation system and the Mesa Career Ladder program.
With over 70,000 students, the Mesa school district was and remains the largest school district in Arizona. The career ladder redesign included a number of elements not contained in any education merit pay system in any large district in the United States.
1. Rewards to teachers for the measured performance of the Mesa School District. Previous reward systems had linked pay to individual performance or even school performance but not district performance.
2. Rewards to teachers based on Parents rating the quality of education provided to their child.
3. Rewards to teachers based on students rating the quality of education received.
4. Rewards to teachers based on a 360 degree evaluation of their performance by the principal as well as four or more other teachers in the school.
5. Bonuses to teachers based on academic gains at their school.
==Possible components of effective merit pay systems==
1. Individual performance
2. School district performance
3. School performance
4. Team/grade level performance
5. District office performance
6. State performance
==Possible design elements of effective merit pay systems==
1. Test score gain as measured by the percentage of students making one year’s progress in math, reading and language.
2. Test score gain as measured in scale score points per year.
3. Parent evaluation of the quality of their child’s education.
5. Student evaluation of the quality of their education
6. Teacher evaluation of the quality of the school as a place to work
Saturday, December 2, 2006
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