Racing to the Top -- But Taking the Wrong Path
In a program known as Race to the Top, the federal government is coaxing states to change policies by offering them chances to get a cut of $5 billion in educational grants. One of the major goals is to tie teacher pay to student performance.
As always, money talks. For example, Wisconsin lawmakers are voting this week to lift a ban on using student test scores to judge teachers. Nine other states have taken similar steps, even though states can't apply for the money yet and only a few states may end up getting grants.
All this might make sense if the underlying assumption was valid--namely, that teacher motivation is a key factor in the poor academic results that mark schools across the nation. Ironically, results in from Texas just this week raise serious challenges to this line of reasoning. That state has spent $300 million on merit pay for teachers over the last three years. The plan did not produce the academic improvements that proponents hoped for when the program was launched in 2006.
Teacher motivation is important. It is soul destroying to be in a class where the teacher is not fully committed to success. But teacher motivation is not the source of the pandemic of poor performance that achievement scores steadily reveal.
Lots of factors are involved. One of the key ones is found in the field of reading. Effective reading is the foundation for academic success. But reading instruction is marked by inadequate, incomplete and ineffective content and methods. As long as that system continues, reading failure will continue. No matter how committed the teacher, the methods of instruction are going to yield failure.
Unfortunately, the program does not simply represent a waste of valuable money and effort. As long as this line of thinking dominates educational planning, effective change is not going to happen.
