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We affirm Resolved: That merit pay based on student achievement should be a significant
component of K-12 teacher compensation in United States public schools.

To clarify, we offer the following definitions:

Merit pay: “an additional sum paid to an employee, as a schoolteacher, whose work is superior and whose
services are valued” from the Random House Dictionary. The resolution specifies that this pay is determined
through student performance.

Should: “Indicates a recommendation” This means that the debate ought to focus on whether
merit pay is an advisable system of pay, not on questions of specific implementation.

We have three points. First, that the salary system currently used needs changing. Second, that
teacher effectiveness directly impacts student performance. And third, that merit pay can
improve teacher performance, and subsequently student achievement.

1) The current base-pay system in the United States is an ineffective way to assess the
performance of a teacher in his job.
James B. Stedman and Gail McCallion, (Specialists in Social Legislation and Labor Economics)
explain:
[T]he single salary schedule uses two central factors to allocate wages — more
Disenchantment with foc on the it uses

years of experience and higher levels of education. . Critics view it as largely rewarding longevity and the accumulation of college credits, not classroom effectiveness Some

[R]esearchers have found that these two factors have relatively little beneficial — experience and level of education —

impact on classroom effectiveness as measured by the achievement of a teacher’s students. Eric A. Hanushek
has concluded: “The results [of a review of the available research] are startlingly consistent in finding no strong evidence that teacher-student ratios, teacher education, or teacher experience have an expected positive effect on student achievement.”21 Nevertheless, these conclusions about the
relationship of experience and levels of education are debated. For example, based on their analysis of the literature, RobGreenwald, et al, concluded: “[R]esource variables that attempt to describe the quality of teachers (teacher ability, teacher education, and teacher experience) show very
strong relations with student achievement.”22

They continue:
The relatively low
Although starting salaries for teachers have become more competitive with salaries for other college graduates, the dispersion of teachers’ salaries are not commensurate with those available to other college graduates.20

maximum potential salary for teachers, in combination with the single salary schedule which is
currently used fail[s] to: draw the highest caliber of potential teachers into the
in the vast majority of districts, is argued by some to

field; reward teachers who are exceptionally productive; or allocate the supply of teachers to
fields where they are most needed (like math and science). Criticism of the single salary schedule has undergirded efforts to implement performance-based pay plans in
elementary and secondary education.

Salary allocation as it stands now fails to recognize teachers for doing their job well, but rather
rewards criteria which have no affect on helping students. Further, the low salary and slow rate
of potential growth deters potential teachers from joining the teaching field, which could impact
the quality of the education that students receive.

2) Teacher effectiveness directly impacts student achievement. Michael Jonas explains (in
the Boston Globe) studies that correlate student and teacher performance:
Starting in the 1970s, Hanushek became one of the first researchers to try to quantify the impact of teachers on student learning. Since student achievement tends to rise along with family income and other nonschool factors, the challenge was to try to isolate the actual effect of teachers on

By looking at how much a student has progressed in a

learning. Hanushek and a North Carolina statistician named William Sanders were early developers of the value-added model.

year, regardless of where he or she started from, the model [caputures] the true effect of a claims to capture

given teacher. . “You take most, if not all, the socioeconomic issues off the table,” says Sanders
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[O]ne study in schools in Gary, Ind. ranked teachers based on the average growth
In 1992, Hanushek conducted such He

in achievement shown by students in their classes, and then compared the difference in he

achievement progress over a school year The by students in classes taught by teachers ranked the most effective with that of students in classes of the lowest ranked teachers.

difference amounted to a full year of learning, with students of the lowest performing teachers
gaining half a year (compared with average achievement growth) while students of the highly
effective teachers gained one-and-a-half years.

In order to properly evaluate teachers and their effectiveness at achieving the goals of education,
the most effective criteria to look at is student achievement. Since students can be tested at the
beginning and end of the year, evaluations based on the average difference in achievement
specific to a particular teacher’s class can be given while avoiding over-standardization.

3) Merit pay helps to improve both teacher and student performance, solving the problems with
the current pay system.

Debbi Harris (from the Wisconsin Center for Education Research) shows the advantages of
merit-pay for teacher performance:

[Merit]-based systems provide teachers with

The primary advantage of both performance- and outcome incentives to work is that they each financial

hard and improve their teaching. Compensation is based either directly on student achievement or on teacher behaviors affecting student achievement,

[encourages] teachers to work on skills that affect student learning

encouraging There is rather than on advanced degrees that may not.

some evidence that test scores tended to be higher in

merit pay may improve student achievement as intended, although the research is not conclusive. Figlio and Kenny found that

schools with merit pay; however, as the authors emphasize, available data make it impossible to determine whether the merit pay systems prompted improved performance or higher scoring schools are simply more likely to adopt merit pay

studies suggest that merit pay may motivate teachers to work harder, spend more time on
programs.41 Other

tasks related to teaching, and better align their teaching with the recommended
curriculum.42;43;44 These behaviors are consistent with improved teaching and learning, suggesting a possible link
between the merit pay systems and desirable changes.

[P]erformance-
In addition, based systems may [also] encourage desirable candidates to enter and
and outcome-

remain in teaching. Highly talented candidates and teachers have an incentive to teach in
systems that provide additional pay for their superior performance. This predicted increase in work force quality is supported by a study of a very different
occupation: auto glass workers. When
the Safelite Glass Corporation switched from a bureaucratic pay system to piece rates, more able employees tended to remain with the firm while unproductive employees left. Newly recruited employees under the piece rate system also tended to be more able than newly recruited employees
under the bureaucratic pay system had been. The quality of the company’s work force improved as a result of the move to merit pay.45

Amy Fagan explains the advantages in student performance (in the January 29, 2008
Washington Times:) “ . The study
The study comes as lawmakers are crafting a bill to renew the No Child Left Behind Act, and Republicans and Democrats are considering including performance pay systems for teachers

examined standardized test scores from 2004-2005 through 2006-2007 of the three schools that recently joined the ACPP and of other Little Rock

After adjusting for factors such as prior achievement, socioeconomic status, race and gender,
schools.

it found students in the ACPP schools [with merit pay] outperformed their peers in
nonparticipating schools nearly seven percentile points. In language, the
by 3.52 normal curve equivalent (NCE) points in math, meaning

students outperformed their peers by

in ACPP schools nine percentile points. In reading, 4.56 NCE points, or nearly the ACPP

students outperformed their peers by six percentile points” (p. A3). 3.29 NCE points, or

By increasing time spent on purely academic material and incentives to improve lacking teaching
skills in particular areas, merit-pay motivates teachers to become more efficient and effective at
teaching their curriculum. As a result, student performance can be beneficially impacted, as
shown in our second point. Moreover, merit-pay encourages the expansion of the teaching field,
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making it more desirable to teach, and remain teaching, in our schools, ensuring that the best
teachers are educating students.