In his latest Report Card post, Matthew Stone points out that the party lines on merit pay, at least within the State of Maine. have shifted; no longer is it righties for, lefties against. Now that Obama has proposed merit pay, Dems and some of their allies are more favorably inclined. Stone sees little opposition to merit pay at the state level. (related story)
Be that as it may, we hope that serious attention is paid to the nitty-gritty details of merit programs. If we fail to pay close attention, “merit pay” will mean nothing more than additional pay. We’re not opposed to discussing additional pay, but let’s have that discussion out in the open, and on its own merits!
In the meantime, we came across a relentlessly close reading* of Friday’s David Brooks column on education (‘No Picnic for Me Either‘, NYT, 3/13). The critic R.S. McCain, blogging as The Other Mccain, does a fine job of beating up on a poor defenseless Times pundit. Here’s the post, and here’s what he (R.S. McCain) had to say about merit pay:
Of course, “merit pay for good teachers” is just code meaning, “higher pay, period.” Whatever standards are used to measure “merit” will be manipulated by administrators to reward their favorites. Just as the chief result of the student-testing requirements of No Child Left Behind was wholesale fraud in standardized testing, so will the lure of “merit pay” result in bogus attempts to fake “merit.”
Read the whole thing. Delicious, and a fine example of sustained invective!
Incidentally, Brooks’ column includes the following criticism of Obama:
In short, Obama hopes to change incentives so districts do the effective and hard things instead of the easy and mediocre things. The question is whether he has the courage to follow through. Many doubt he does. They point to the way the president has already caved in on the D.C. vouchers case.
Democrats in Congress just killed an experiment that gives 1,700 poor Washington kids school vouchers. They even refused to grandfather in the kids already in the program, so those children will be ripped away from their mentors and friends. The idea was to cause maximum suffering, and 58 Senators voted for it.
Obama has, in fact, been shamefully quiet about this.
This is followed by some optimism that seems utterly without foundation, and which is in fact contradicted by the example Brooks has just given:
But in the next weeks he’ll at least try to protect the kids now in the program. And more broadly, there’s reason for hope. Education is close to his heart. He has broken with liberal orthodoxy on school reform more than any other policy. He’s naturally inclined to be data driven. There’s reason to think that this week’s impressive speech will be followed by real and potentially historic action.
Have mercy!
* Known in the trade as a “fisking“.