Lee Cullum: For teachers

It's not the money or test scores, but the work that inspires them

12:03 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 3, 2005

One controversial aspect of the school-finance bill rejected by the Texas House last week was merit pay for teachers. With the Senate working to revive the bill, it may well surface again.

A determined critic of the plan is Cathy Bryce, Highland Park superintendent. "Our teachers have spoken loud and clear," she said recently. "They do not, and we do not, support incentive plans as a carrot to improve student performance. There is no research to show that it works, and we don't believe we ought to expend dollars in that area."

She is right. Merit pay flows from the idea that schools should be run like a business. But they are not a business. They form an entirely different organism with a set of values altogether different from the sphere of commerce. So said Jane Jacobs in her seminal book, Systems of Survival.

The world, Ms. Jacobs noted, is divided into two value systems – the commercial (business, science and, partly, law) and the guardian (government, military, religion, education and the arts). Above all, the commercial system values honesty (essential for contracts), followed by industriousness, thrift and dissent for the sake of the task. (That's the contrarian who invents and builds a better widget.)

Loyalty is the primary value for guardians. Politicians cannot function without it. Neither can military troops. Guardians also value ostentation (public and religious ceremonies with elegant vestments and uniforms), largess (a little pork goes a long way toward a successful system) and deceit for the sake of the task. (Sometimes, as in agencies of intelligence, it's necessary to lie for the good of the commonweal. No one wants to hear that at this moment, but sometimes it's true.)

Problems arise, Ms. Jacobs says, when you mix the two value systems inappropriately. That will corrupt the enterprise, whatever it is. For example, New York once decided to pay its subway police according to their productivity. All this accomplished was a rash of false arrests. Similarly, if you reward teachers according to the test scores of their students, it will prompt them to teach mainly to the test, and a dumbed-down test at that.

This is what the House bill that imploded last week in Austin and may emerge again proposed to do:

•Permit districts to allocate raises for teachers on a discretionary basis, some receiving $450, others $550 and so on, within certain parameters.

•Require that districts use 1 percent of their professional budgets for incentive pay with the guidelines to be developed by teachers themselves.

•Provide $100 million for teacher bonuses awarded according to criteria created by the Texas Education Agency, and including those who work on campuses with 50 percent or more who are educationally disadvantaged and who demonstrate growth among those students; and those who achieve improved graduation rates as well as test scores.

These are not all bad, regardless of what Ms. Jacobs says. Certainly extra compensation for work in especially difficult settings is worth considering. So are bonuses for teams of teachers who put together unusually inventive programs.

But discretionary raises within a school might produce more disharmony than elevated student performance.

Remember, it is not money that motivates guardians, though they should be fairly, even generously, paid. It is recognition and the satisfaction of doing something really well.

Rep. Dan Branch, a Dallas Republican who has worked tirelessly on education through many sessions, each more frustrating than the one before, supports merit pay for teachers: "Allowing local campuses to develop their own incentive system is a good concept. We don't need to use a wooden approach. I would be open to something" along these lines.

I have great respect for Mr. Branch and agree that some creativity in compensation might be useful. Do not, however, reward teachers according to the test scores of their students. That is a sure road to empty education.

Lee Cullum is a journalist based in Dallas. Her e-mail address is lcullum@swbell.net.

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