"We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of
"separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal. Brown v. Board of Education (1954)"
"We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of
"pay for performance" has no place. Pay for performance is
inherently corrupting and exploits public school children for the financial benefit of adults."
Pay for performance tied to student test scores should have no place in the field of public education.
I have voted against pay for performance. I will continue to vote against it for reasons that are obvious:
- It is a part of the corporate education reform model to privatize public education.
- It exploits children.
- It corrupts adults.
- It promotes cheating for dollars.
- It creates competition - not collaboration.
- It places a dollar sign on student test success.
- It does not work in public education.
The primary motivation for the cheating schemes of adults in Atlanta Public Schools was to obtain pay incentives all the way up to the Superintendent.
Research has suggested that pay for performance does little or nothing to improve student achievement.
The Debate over Teacher Merit Pay: A Freakonomics Quorum - Click Here
"There’s just one problem: educators almost universally hate merit
pay, and have been adamantly opposed to it from day one. Simply,
teachers say merit pay won’t work.
"In the last year, there’s been some pretty damning evidence proving
them right; research showing that merit pay, in a variety of shapes and
sizes, fails to raise student performance. In the worst of cases, such
as the scandal in Atlanta,
it’s contributed to flat-out cheating on the part of teachers and
administrators. So, are we surprised that educators don’t respond to
monetary incentives? Is that even the right conclusion to draw?
http://carlaranger.blogspot.com/search?q=freakonomics
Pay for performance in public education (K-12) appears to result in a corrupting benefit for a few adults - but does little for the success of all children.
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http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/02/justice/georgia-cheating-scandal
By CNN Staff
updated 10:00 AM EDT, Wed April 3, 2013
(CNN) -- The former superintendent of Atlanta Public
Schools was among the educators who surrendered to authorities Tuesday
after being indicted by a grand jury in a cheating scandal that rocked
the district and drew national attention.
Beverly Hall resigned
from her position in 2011 after a state investigation into large,
unexplained test score gains in some Atlanta schools. She has denied any
role in the cheating scandal.
A Fulton County grand
jury last week indicted 35 educators from the district, including
principals, teachers and testing coordinators. They were ordered to turn
themselves in by Tuesday, District Attorney Paul Howard said.
By 10:00 p.m., 27 of 35
educators had turned themselves in at the Fulton County Jail to face
charges including racketeering, theft by taking and making false
statements about their roles in an alleged plot to falsify students'
standardized tests. Eight of them had been released on bond late
Tuesday, the Fulton County Sheriff's office said.
In 2009, Hall was named
the National Superintendent of the Year by the Schools Superintendents
Association, which at the time said her "leadership has turned Atlanta
into a model of urban school reform."
Cheating scandal hits Atlanta schools
First indicted educator turns self in
35 employees indicted in cheating scandal
But the indictment paints
another picture of Hall, one of a superintendent with "a single-minded
purpose, and that is to cheat," Howard told reporters last week.
According to the
indictment, Hall placed unreasonable goals on educators and "protected
and rewarded those who achieved targets by cheating." It also alleges
she fired principals who failed to achieve goals and "ignored
suspicious" test score gains throughout the school system.
Her bond was reduced from $7.5 million to $200,000, the Fulton County Sheriff's office reported.
