Waiting for “Superman” and Merit Pay

Waiting for “Superman,” a movie currently playing in local theaters, is a documentary that follows the lives of five kids in five different American cities and details their individual experiences in school. The substance of the movie is that America’s schools are grossly unequal in terms of the quality of education students are receiving. There are, of course, a number of issues here. The documentary speaks of projected consequences. For example, in 2020, there will be 123 million high-skilled, high-paying jobs in America, but only an estimated 50 million citizens will have the technical skills to fill the positions. The film also identifies what it holds to be critical barriers. The primary barrier is identified as tenure and teachers’ unions that often stand in the way of removing corrupt and incapable school administrators and officials. Another issue is that “Charter Schools,” by and large, out-perform public schools. Whatever the validity of those charges may be, our interest here is in another issue brought forward in the movie, merit-based salaries. The movie promotes the idea of paying effective teachers with bonuses that can, in some cases, double medium salaries. Conversely, a recently reported study by the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University concludes that pay for performance is not “the magic bullet that so often the policy world is looking for.” The study, conducted from 2006 to 2009 and involving 296 middle school math teachers, found that students in classes where the teachers were given bonuses if their students did well, in fact progressed no faster than those in classes taught by non-bonus teachers. In an example more typical of the non-school workplace, Ford Motor company, in 2010, reinstated the merit pay increases that it had suspended for 18 months in an effort to tighten costs in a very difficult economy. Obviously, Ford, at least, feels that merit pay works with their employees. So there the contentious issues stand, somewhere short of finality. Anyone out there have workplace experience with merit pay? If so, what do you think? Either way, we’d love to hear your thoughts.