Pay Matters!!
By: Karla Wright, Compensation Consultant
Reforming teacher pay is a hot topic. Many believe that offering performance based pay, such as bonuses and incentives, will motivate teachers to perform at a higher level. The misconception that money motivates is widely held. In order to have a logical and truthful discussion about the connection between pay and teacher motivation, we must look at actual behavioral science studies that disprove the myth that money is our number one motivator. A recent WorldatWork study found variable pay (bonuses and other incentives) is not among the top five concerns of workers. (SHRM 7-28-2011) Daniel Pink, in his book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”, says that it is a mistake to believe that money is the best way to motivate ourselves. Money is a widely used external reward – the old carrot-and-stick approach. The underlying assumption that if you dangle a carrot out in front of an employee (a bonus, incentive, more money) that the employee will perform better, work harder, and change their daily behavior. It is simply not the case. It is somewhat insulting because the carrot-and-stick approach operates on the premise that the worker (teacher) is holding something back and not giving their full effort. Workers, including teachers, dive into their daily work for reasons that are intrinsically motivating, such as feelings of appreciation and respect, believing you are making a difference, providing value to people and society, and the pure satisfaction of learning, accomplishing, discovering and sharing. These are the factors that motivate us to do a good job and be the best we can be. (Daniel Pink, 2009)
As we create and develop pay for performance plans for teachers, we absolutely must rely on studies that show the true correlation between pay and motivation. We should not rely on the simplistic idea intermittently applied variable pay practices will be in and of itself a motivator for teachers. When a teacher makes a decision to forego a break to spend an extra ten minutes with a struggling reader, we all know he/she is not doing it because they are going to get more money.
I do absolutely believe that performance-based pay systems are much better than seniority or time -in- grade pay systems. If we don’t fall into the pay is a motivator trap, we can build wonderful performance-based pay systems that reward behaviors that result in the learning and behavioral outcomes that are valued. In Iowa, Governor Branstad and Department of Education Director, Jason Glass support looking at ways to improve the attractiveness of the teaching profession. Iowa legislators from both parties have said they are open to linking teacher pay with classroom performance. The devil is in the details. One approach for identifying, communicating, developing, monitoring and rewarding the desired teacher behaviors is called Multi-Rater Feedback. It has been used in businesses over the past decide with great success. Employees and supervisors like it. Standards are established together with the workers (teachers) and employer (Principal, Board, Education Association). Carefully crafted levels of achievement and behavioral activities are decided upon and documented. Teachers receive feedback from their students (college professors are used to this!), from parents/guardians, from supervisor or mentoring personnel (principals, team leaders, superintendents), from colleagues and peers, and could include self ratings as well. This would be an elaborate set of standards and not an easy one page form to complete by one supervisor/principal. The feedback would be confidential. Teachers could choose some students and parents and the supervising authority would choose some students and parents as well. This avoids stacking the deck. An outside facilitator tallies the outcomes and delivers results back to the Principal and/or teacher. It is possible to develop a numeric score or grading system from which teacher base pay could be associated.
Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan has urged teachers to support performance pay, noting that although “test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation, or tenure decisions,” not including student achievement in teacher evaluation is “illogical and indefensible” (Gratz, 2009) In addition other indicators of success, such as student scores and grade or whole school results could be tabulated into some type of pay system as well. These various standards of specific teacher behaviors, student outcomes, school results (maybe others) then become the formula for determining teacher pay. This is performance-based pay. It is not an incentive system. It is not a this-for-that seniority system. It is a reward system that sends a powerful message that the teacher is paid for outcomes that are valued and important for achieving the desired and agreed to results. Teacher performance pay plans have met with some, but limited, success to date. There actually is not evidence of substantial student achievement or teacher performance improvement. Teachers are mixed in their reactions to the various plans.
Teachers’ sense of fairness is essential to acceptance. There must be a sense of fairness where the procedures and formulas used for distributing pay are respected and accepted. Historically unions, including teacher unions, have been against performance evaluations.
A three year study showed that rewarding teachers with bonus pay, in the absence of other support programs, did not raise student test scores. The researchers state that even though test scores did not go up, it does not imply that other plans would not be successful. (Springer, Vanderbilt University, 2010)
Teacher associations have historically opposed performance pay plans. The Principal Investigator for the Vanderbilt study states “we believe there is an important lesson here: Teachers are more likely to cooperate with a performance pay plan if its purpose is to determine whether the policy is a sound idea, than with plans being forced on them in the absence of such evidence and in the face of their skepticism and misgivings.” (Springer, Vanderbilt University, 2010) The Vanderbilt study used the assumption that pay would motivate. They found that pay did not motivate and some pretty large amounts were paid out. Teachers do not respond to pay like rats do to pellets. It will take more than financial incentives to improve student achievement.
The flawed logic of many performance pay plans is that additional pay will motivate teachers to work harder and that teachers know what to do to improve student achievement, but they aren’t motivated to do it. Those assumptions say teachers value financial rewards more than student success. Does anyone really think that teachers are willfully withholding effort and will only really offer help if someone holds out money (a carrot)? Not only is it flawed logic, it is demeaning. And for sure it is not motivational. (Gratz, Educational Leadership, 2009) How the plan is designed and managed is extremely important for overall teacher satisfaction with and belief in the plan. Changes to teacher compensation practices require strong vision and will. Understanding what truly motivates teachers will and should drive how the system is designed and managed. Pay is a necessary transaction but not a magic bullet that will motivate teachers to care more or serve better. Teachers will continue to be motivated by the same set of factors that have always motivated them.
We should change how we pay teachers to reflect the valued behaviors and desired outcomes. We should get rid of the time in grade, treat everyone the same, across the board, pay systems.
Although research so far puts limitations on the effectiveness of performance pay for improving education outcomes, the current “time in grade” seniority systems absolutely provides no enhancement to education outcomes. Performance pay systems that set up desired standards, behaviors and outcomes and measures the results from multiple sources and inputs and then summarizes that data back to the teachers provides the mechanism to change behaviors and outcomes through teacher communication, training, development, mentoring, peer review, etc.
We can only manage that which we measure. We must remember to manage “what counts” as well as what is “countable”.
Performance pay can work! Pay matters. Reward results. Time to connect desired behaviors and valued achievements to teacher pay.
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Pink, 2009
“Reward Practices Impact Perceptions of Fairness”, SHRM, July 2011
“Teacher Performance Pay: Synthesis of Plans, Research and Guidelines for Practice”, Heneman, Milanowski and Kimball, February 2007, Consortium for Policy Research in Education
“Teacher Performance Pay Alone Does Not Raise Student Test Scores”, Matthew Springer, Vanderbilt University, September 2010
“The Problem with Performance Pay”, Donald Gratz, Educational Leadership, November 2009
“Separating Myth from Reality” Hulleman, 2010