Grading the Teachers: Teachers in Richer Schools Score Higher on Value-Added Measure. Value-added was supposed to be the great equalizer — a measure of schools that would finally judge fairly how much poor students are learning compared with their wealthier peers. Meant to gauge whether students learn as much as expected in a given year, value-added will become a key part of rating individual teachers from rich and poor districts alike next school year. But a Plain Dealer/StateImpact Ohio analysis raises questions about how much of an equalizer it truly is, even as the state ramps up its use. The 2011-12 value-added results show that districts, schools and teachers with large numbers of poor students tend to have lower value-added results than those that serve more-affluent ones. As with most issues surrounding value-added, those results raise questions about whether the system is a flawed and unfair measure or one that points out a problem with real consequences for kids who fall further behind.
Value-added is designed to disregard that head start on the learning curve. Eight brief points about “merit pay” for teachers. A Big Apple for Educators: New York City's Experiment with Schoolwide Performance Bonuses: Final Evaluation Report. In the 2007–2008 school year, the New York City Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers jointly implemented the Schoolwide Performance Bonus Program in a random sample of the city's high-needs public schools.
The program lasted for three school years, and its broad objective was to improve student performance through school-based financial incentives. The question, of course, was whether it was doing so. To examine its implementation and effects, the department tasked a RAND Corporation-led partnership with the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University to conduct a two-year study of the program that would offer an independent assessment.
This report describes the results of our analyses for all three years of the program, from 2007–2008 through 2009–2010. This work built on past research and was guided by a theory of action articulated by program leaders. This report is part of the RAND Corporation monograph series. Study: Teacher bonuses failed to boost test scores | Featured Superintendent's Center. Results raise new questions about the effectiveness of ‘merit pay’ as an education reform strategy From staff and wire reports Read more by staff and wire services reports September 21st, 2010 Students whose teachers were offered bonuses of up to $15,000 a year for improved test scores fared no better than their peers. Offering big bonuses to teachers failed to raise students’ test scores in a three-year study released Sept. 21 that calls into question the Obama administration’s push for merit pay to improve education.
The study, conducted in the metropolitan Nashville school system by Vanderbilt University’s National Center on Performance Incentives, was described by the researchers as the nation’s first scientifically rigorous look at the effects of merit pay for teachers. It found that students whose teachers were offered bonuses of up to $15,000 a year for improved test scores registered the same gains on standardized exams as those whose teachers were given no such incentives. Creating Successful Research Skills Assignments. Main Content Purpose of Creating Assignments to Teach Research Skills Many students never develop good research skills during their years at Penn. These students are often unaware of research tools or don't understand the expectations of scholarly disciplines. Assignments that teach research skills can help students gain confidence and facility in using research tools, a better understanding of disciplinary criteria, and a sense of how scholars use resources in their research.
What is a Research Skills Assignment? The most common research skills assignment is the research paper or project, which helps students learn to synthesize, analyze and interpret information using appropriate disciplinary content and methodology. Research skills assignments help students answer the following sorts of questions: What is a scholarly article? These are not remedial skills! Tips on Creating Library Research Skills Assignments Set Clear Goals Be clear about what the assignments are meant to accomplish. If you pay peanuts, do you get monkeys? Paying teachers 10 per cent more results in 5-10 per cent higher pupil performance. It is no secret that higher teacher quality translates into higher educational outcomes, but how can the UK attract the best and brightest to the profession? Peter Dolton and Oscar Marcenaro-Gutierrez examine the enormous variation in teachers’ pay across OECD countries and find evidence that if teachers are better paid and higher up the national income distribution, there is likely to be an improvement in pupil performance.
Why do teachers in Switzerland earn four times what teachers in Israel earn? Why are teachers in South Korea paid at the 78th percentile of their country’s income distribution whereas those in the United States are paid at only the 49th percentile? And do these massive variations in the way different countries treat their teachers matter for the outcomes of their pupils? Answers to these questions are at the heart of the educational policy debate and we can learn a lot about the relationship between teacher quality and pupil outcomes from cross-national comparisons. School Finance 101. The Merits of Merit Pay. A study of six selected school districts that had been using merit pay plans successfully for at least 6 years provided insight into administrative strategies associated with merit pay program success. The researchers visited the districts, interviewed teachers and administrators, and studied local documents.
Each district used a unique combination of strategies from a list of four: the programs can involve (1) providing extra pay for extra work rather than for higher performance, (2) involving teachers in the establishment of merit criteria, (3) minimizing the impact of awards by keeping them small or distributing them widely, or (4) keeping the program profile low by limiting publicity or making participation voluntary. Descriptors: Case Studies, Elementary Secondary Education, Incentives, Merit Pay, Premium Pay, Success, Teacher Administrator Relationship, Teacher Effectiveness, Teacher Evaluation, Teacher Participation.
University of Florida News – To predict student success, there’s no place like home: UF study. GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Current school reform efforts, like No Child Left Behind, emphasize teacher quality as the most important factor in student success, but University of Florida researchers have identified another, stunningly accurate predictor of classroom performance — the student’s home address. Right down to the neighborhood and street number. The researchers attribute their finding to a profound correlation they documented between home location, family lifestyles and students’ achievement on state standardized tests. “The core philosophy of school reform today is that effective schools and quality teaching can correct all learning problems, including those of poor minority students who are most at risk, and if they fail it’s the educators’ fault,” said Harry Daniels, professor of counselor education at UF’s College of Education and lead investigator of the study.
“The testing patterns in both counties virtually mirrored each other,” Daniels said. Credits Writer.