I would imagine that more money would be spent on sea turtles and snail darters if they (sea turtles and snail darters) could organize political action committees, unions and a variety of looking-glass observers. Not that the money would go to the betterment of the sea turtles or snail darters, but to the cottage industry built around them.
From todays "The Gradebook", we have this link:Teachers' income doesn't reflect results - St. Petersburg Times
My understanding of the article is that "merit pay" has a low correlation to "tenure".
As I have gained some insight from the local blogs that purport that teacher performance is greatly dependent on the "raw material" or "learning readiness" of the students along with the level of familial support of the student regarding "school readiness", this comment must rankle a few feathers or erect a few hackles:
"Knowing that teachers are the single most important determinant of the learning that is going to take place in a year for that child, people have started conducting studies to see, 'What is the relationship between the experience and the degrees held and the student outcomes?' " says Matthew Springer, director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University."
According to the article, a 25 year teacher with a master's degree makes $61,000/yr while a 5 year teacher with no advanced degree makes $40,000. So, another kick-in-the-lesson-plan is that this five year teacher can earn a %5.25 award if the stars and the moon align correctly, whereas the same stars and moon alignment for the 25 year teacher would only gain a %3.44 award. Let me know if my math is wrong.
The article states that the teachers who received merit bonuses last year averaged 14 years in the classroom. I wonder what the mean and the mode was of the set of teachers. If you have a 1000 neophytes and five old timers, chances are the newbies are going to have an advantage based on just numbers. But if all 5 gray hairs received the merit pay, that would be a significant point to be made.
Another quantitative/qualitative exercise that would be interesting to see the results of is the correlation between the teaching setting of the new teachers compared to the teaching setting of the old ones. I may be out on a limb without citing resources, but it is my understanding that tenured teachers migrate to well supported schools and the incoming teachers are thrown into the lion pit. I know that there are monetary carrots used to urge the "good" teachers to go to the rough areas. What I am not sure of is what criteria is used to designate a "good" teacher. Would an old teacher who has never received a merit award be sought after as much or more than a 6 yr. teacher who has received a merit pay award for 2 or more years? How much could I get paid to study this?
Update: here is a resource Rookie teachers matched with poorer schools - St. Petersburg Times
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As a teacher of "regular" English, who teaches FUSE classes ( approx 1/3/ to 1/2 ESE and remainder level 1,2,and 3 on FCAT)I can assure you my students don't "test" or "perform" as well as those in honors classes. I work just as hard as those techers (my colleagues and I are all trying to get the best out of Springboard for the kids)--but I usually don't get MAP. That does bother me--however--it came this year--and I still don't get how. I guess I'll just consider it the partial pay raise I should have been getting all these years and a partial reimbursement for all the extra hours I put in ( NO, I DON'T want to know what the per hour amount is). We, as teachers try hard to not feel slighted when others receive MAP and we don't. Someone,somewhere is getting a little more of what they deserve. That's just that.
ANYONE can choose to "engage" their students or not---I've seen teachers of all levels of experience sitting behind a desk while the room is dead silent--and I know teachers who never sit behind their desks when students are in the room. One should be careful about making generalizations regarding merit pay and experience.
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