State Pays Researchers To Determine If Merit Based Teacher Pay Really Works

Cart, meet horse; horse, meet cart.

Last November, when Governor Perry authorized incentive pay (a fancy way of saying “merit-based pay”) for Texas teachers via an executive order year and earlier this year when the Legislature authorized a $360 million dollar appropriation for a merit-based pay program, it seems as though one could have at least safely assumed that someone somwehere in governor’s office had some concrete data concerning whether or not the multi-million dollar program was worth the paper on which the legislation was printed.

In a classic case of putting the cart before the horse, however, that does not seem to be the case. The Texas Education Agency has now hired researchers from Vanderbilt University (no, that’s not in Texas) to study the new system to determine whether it actually results in better student performance.

For a $380,000 price tage, the Vanderbilt researchers will spend three years determining if the program actually works.

That $380,000 would be just as well spent if it was flushed down Tom Craddick’s solid brass commode in the Speaker’s Apartment.

Not only have merit-based pay programs across the nation had mixed results at best, but there is the fact this will also increase pressure on students concerning the standardized tests. That stands to reason given that the merit-based pay is based on standardized testing scores.
In three years, I am sure we will all be awaiting the results of that study with bated breath.