Teachers to Republican Legislators re: Merit Pay

From Debbie Lack, April 16, 2011

Dear State of Ohio Republican Legislators,

We are taxpayers and voters in this state. Oh yes, we are also teachers.

As such we are trying to understand the provisions of SB5 that will so deeply affect our lives. While we are puzzled why you are trying to balance the budget on the backs of dedicated public servants instead of those who brought this economic calamity upon all of us, we are particularly mystified by the Merit Pay provision you’ve included since no one, including you, has ever defined or explained it. As teachers we’d like to give you a little quiz on Merit Pay to assess your understanding of this provision (I’m sure you’d be glad to comply as you are such proponents of the merits of standardized testing).

ESSAY Question #1: Please define and/or describe fully Merit Pay, using specific logical examples to back up your answer.

Too hard? No specifics coming to mind? No statistics to prove Merit Pay can or has ever worked?

Then let us help you with a study guide of questions because, as conscientious teachers, we want our students to succeed rather than entrapping them in a test of “gotcha.”

1. Merit Pay based on standardized test results: Will the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) success rate be used for individual teachers? Since the test is given in 10^th grade in Reading, Writing, Social Studies, Math, and Science, will only 10^th grade teachers receive Merit Pay? What happens to Spanish teachers, Art teachers, Physical Education teachers, Business teachers?….well, you get the picture. Does the 10^th grade teacher with honors students get the same Merit Pay scale as the 10^th grade teacher with 16 separate Individualized Education (IEP) students included in his/her class? Do teachers get to pick the students in their classes, as bankers get to pick to whom they give a loan? Will teachers get less Merit Pay if their students newly arrived from other countries score low, or can they just turn them over to Immigration and Naturalization for deportation, legal or not, and will that earn Merit Pay? Will public school districts get to choose the students who will attend their schools, as private schools do, so they can eliminate low scorers before they can be counted in their OGT results?
2. Merit Pay based on student evaluations: Will teachers be rated by their students when they demand the best from them and thus make students work hard, often causing students to complain (low rating predicted here)? Will teachers be rated by students 1 or 2 or 5 years down the road, when their students email or call or write and thank them for teaching them work habits that are paying off in college or their jobs? Will those scores be averaged, or will the better score wipe out the worse score?
3. Merit Pay based on parent evaluations: Will parents spend all day every day in the classroom to observe the teachers’ techniques, read all the lesson plans, witness the individualized attention given to each student? (Of course the rooms will get rather crowded since class sizes are rising as schools cut teachers.)Will teachers who hold their students to a high standard lose Merit Pay when a parent complains his daughter cannot play soccer or her son won’t get into his first choice college because of the C the teacher “gave” ?
4. Merit Pay based on extra-contractual work: I know this area of study surprises you because you didn’t know it would be on the quiz since you didn’t realize teachers work above and beyond their contracts every single day. Will the teacher who spends between $100 to $500 yearly on classroom supplies, at times food and clothes for his or her students, receive reimbursement for this money as well as Merit Pay, or will Merit Pay count as reimbursement? How many letters of recommendation or scholarship letters will a teacher have to write on his/ her own time to count for Merit Pay – 10, 20, 40+ as many teachers of seniors willingly do? Will teachers need to wear a monitoring device, so their extra hours before and after school in their classrooms grading or working with students, or weekends spent on lesson plans, grading, and the aforementioned letters of recommendation count for Merit Pay? Or will a simple affidavit from their spouses and children testifying to their absence from family functions be sufficient?
5. Combat Pay: You’ll need to know that this is another term for Merit Pay in some schools or in some classrooms. How many times will a teacher need to be stabbed by a pair of scissors or sworn at to warrant Merit Pay? Will more Merit Pay be awarded if a teacher’s tires are slashed or his car keyed?

There will be an extra credit question, so think hard: when will a teacher be so good and earn so much Merit Pay that a district will let him or her go rather than pay that much?

We hope this study guide will enable you to answer our question about what Merit Pay looks like, as you enact legislation including this provision. We’re certain you would want to make your high school government teachers proud of the jobs you are doing serving the citizens of the state of Ohio.

As we await your answer, we’ll go back to doing what we do best: teaching the future generations of voters to preserve democracy in America.

Sincerely,

Annie Brust, high school English teacher

Nicole Costigan, high school English teacher

Jeanette DiBernardo, high school English teacher

Joy Gray, high school English teacher

Emily Hope, high school English teacher

Anissa Smith, high school social studies teacher

P.S. Since Merit Pay is such a good idea, we know you’ll want to institute it for yourselves immediately as a cost saving measure for Ohio as well as a way to improve the quality of legislation since we the taxpayers pay YOUR salaries. We suggest you use the formula used to rank schools, as presented on the Ohio Department of Education’s website: “Ohio’s Value-added system uses an advanced methodology (Education Value-added Assessment System – EVAAS)… This helps assure the validity and usefulness of the resulting measures as they are used in high stakes applications. In addition to the value-added (school and district effects) measures derived from this methodology, Ohio uses EVAAS to compute its federally approved Growth Model (student level projections for AYP).” Confused? Sound like gibberish? Don’t worry – that’s for next week’s quiz.