Erik Wendelken
Stacey Williams
Ploy Khunisorn
Arguments for Merit Pay for Teachers
In the United States, teachers are generally paid according to qualifications and years
of experience. This system guaranteed the same quality as the compensation on salary
(USNews, 2012). However, the quality of education is varied based on the effort and teaching
performance of teachers. Especially, remuneration of teachers is also a crucial issue.
President Barrack Obama pushed an effort to reform the education system by pushing Merit
Pay for Teachers system (Jones B., 2009). This system would pay teachers according to the
excellence in teaching performance – Performance-related pay as part of the educational
reform in term of bonuses for teachers who perform better than others. Lewis Solmon,
President of Teacher Advancement Program Foundation in the United States assessed the
achievement of the merit pay school system based on students’ performance. Even if merit
pay for teachers increases the teaching competitiveness in schools, it provides incredible
advantages to enhance the educational standard due to history of teachers’ merit pay, teacher
motivation and larger salary, and administration and public favor.
Firstly, the origins of teacher merit pay trace back to England in the early eighteenth
century. Merit pay continued in England until 1900. The first account of teacher merit pay
in the United States was in 1908 in Newton Massachusetts. In the late 1960’s and early
1970’s merit pay surfaced again when President Richard Nixon proposed “performance
contracting” that encouraged private companies to invest into education in an attempt to
increase student performance. Interest in teacher merit pay continued at the end of the
twentieth century. The Wisconsin Education Association Council in their Research Brief #20
reported, “In the 1990s, the idea of merit pay once again resurfaced. Academics identified a
new emphasis on educational outputs in school reform (instead of the traditional analysis of
inputs such as spending or teacher qualifications) as one reason for this shift. A second factor
was new research suggesting a strong link between teacher quality and student achievement”.
In 2012, Florida State Governor Rick Scott signed into law a teacher merit pay system, which
will take effect in 2014. The Student Success Act will end teacher tenure, and teachers will
be paid in relation to student achievement.
Teacher merit pay continues to be an attractive option in the twenty first century.
Young teachers like the potential financial benefits, and administrators and parents see the
possibility of increased student achievement. In his article “Why Merit Pay will Improve
Teaching” Steven Malanga stated, “One major benefit of merit systems is that they enable
EED 704 Seminar in Current Educational Issues
Cambridge College Fall 2012
Erik Wendelken
Stacey Williams
Ploy Khunisorn
schools to pay teachers-especially young and ambitious teachers-fatter salaries”. With the
teacher merit pay program, the education profession will attract stronger teachers who are
capable and confident that their teaching skills will be reflected in their pay. Incompetent
teachers will not have the incentive to continue in the profession, and as a result, the
educational system will have better qualified teachers educating our students.
Secondly, teacher motivation and larger salary are one of the advantages to support
merit pay for teachers. You work hard day in and day out. You arrive to work early and you
are the last to leave at night. Before and after school you are planning lesson plans that will
excite your students. You are meeting with students and parents to ensure that all children are
getting what they need to be successful. Throughout the day you are working hard and
running an engaged community of learners. Your students consistently perform well on both
formal and informal assessments. Meanwhile, the teacher next door arrives and leaves with
her students. At any given point throughout the day, her students have their heads down on
their desks, they may be out of control, or they may be wandering around the room. They are
unsure as to how they are doing in school, as their only communication of this information is
through report cards, which come out three times per year. If merit pay were in place at this
school, more teachers would be striving to meet the needs of all learners, and the teachers
who do this would be compensated for all of their hard work and efforts. Merit pay is a major
motivational factor for teachers, and those teachers who put in the time and effort to be sure
their students are getting the best education possible should be rewarded.
Merit pay is a touchy subject amongst educators, however when a plan for merit pay
is unrolled properly, there is a positive impact on student learning (Ritter & Jensen). Merit
pay is positive reinforcement for the additional hours most teachers put into projects,
meetings, planning, and workshops, all of which take a great deal of a teacher’s time. Merit
pay would encourage teachers to do more of these wonderful things, which benefit the
students with whom they are working (Drevitch, 1).
First, merit pay would certainly help to increase a teacher’s motivation. The quality of
a teacher plays a big role in terms of how students perform academically. If a teacher is going
to work hard and get paid the same amount of money regardless of the results of his or her
efforts, where is the incentive to continue to work hard? Teachers should be paid for their
performance through merit pay. This will attract young, hard-working, dedicated teachers to
the profession and keep them in the profession (Johnson & Papay). Teaching is a very mobile
EED 704 Seminar in Current Educational Issues
Cambridge College Fall 2012
Erik Wendelken
Stacey Williams
Ploy Khunisorn
profession; teachers come and go all the time, and schools want to motivate exemplary
teachers to stay within the district, not for them to leave because they were offered better
working conditions and a better salary at another establishment, be it a another school or
another type of company (Brandt, 166).
Merit pay is rooted in the assumption that “teachers who have the chance to earn more
money (even relatively small amounts) will adopt effective instructional practices, work
harder, and succeed with students (Johnson & Papay).” Another reason merit pay is
beneficial is that it helps to increase a teacher’s salary to a reasonable amount. The way that
our pay scale is currently set up is that there is no way for teachers to earn more money by
“exercising initiative or achieving success with students (Johnson & Papay),” therefore
teachers will not put in this extra time with their students; rather they will find an outside
tutoring job or some other way to earn money so that they can pay their bills and live
comfortably. This will also help to tease out the effective teachers from the ineffective
teachers. Those who earn the merit pay will be inclined to stay in the profession, as they feel
they are appropriately compensated for their time, whereas those with little hope of earning
the merit pay will most likely leave the field. Merit pay also encourages expert teachers to
share their expertise with colleagues so that all students can benefit from those exemplary
teachers (Johnson & Papay).
In Texas, a study was done by researchers at Vanderbilt University, the University of
Missouri, and Rand Corp., known as the District Awards for Teacher Excellence plan, to
examine the benefits of merit pay, and it was found that not only did students see slight jumps
in their test scores (in an upward direction), but the school district saw that teachers were
more willing to stay put when compensated for their time and efforts. Also it was found that
the bigger the bonus for the teacher, the greater the jump in test scores. The researchers stated
that, "The probability of turnover surged among teachers who did not receive a DATE award,
while it fell sharply among teachers who did receive such an award.” Also, the larger the
bonus, the more inclined the teachers were to stay working at their schools (Stutz).
Merit pay is a key to keeping inspirational, effective teachers in the field. Without a
competitive salary, the field of education will lose good teachers to other fields. Teachers
need to be paid so that they can pay their bills and live comfortably for all of the hard work
that they put into their profession. Merit pay will allow teachers the time and energy to put
their all into their profession, motivating them to be the best that they can be for their
EED 704 Seminar in Current Educational Issues
Cambridge College Fall 2012
Erik Wendelken
Stacey Williams
Ploy Khunisorn
students. With increased motivation and a more reasonable paycheck, the field of education
will be moving in the right direction to better educate our children.
Lastly, administration and public favor provides the standardized assessment. Merit
pay helps schools differentiate between high performance and low performance of teachers
(Noll J., 2010). It sounds fair to every teacher in school. Merit pay also provides a mechanism
for schools to recognize individual performance on one time basis. The assessment of merit
pay based on the performance of teaching towards students’ test scores, comparing to other
teachers in schools (Rosale J., 2006). Administration and public do favor merit pay and
support this payment system because it is easy, standardized, objective, and effective. This
public favor will encourage teachers to analyze the testing assessment for students.
Especially, the tests have to be enough efficient to assess students’ skills and teachers’ skills.
The merit pay also provides the space for teachers to improve themselves. Moreover, public
prefers merit pay since the schools that adopted merit pay are likely to attract good teachers
to work in those schools. Parents are also confident in schools, where teachers get paid in
merit pay system since they believe that good teachers can make a difference. This is
especially good for schools with lower competitive performance to attract the qualified
teachers. Public believes that the more schools pay progressively, the more efficient teaching
students will get. Therefore, the public perception towards merit pay is positive (Noll J.,
2010).
In political perspective, Barack Obama does support merit pay for teachers according
to provisions of “No Child Left Behind.” Reforming the educational system in order to attract
the efficient and effective teachers to teach all students in the USA requires merit pay system
(Fitzgerald T., 2007). Especially, during economic and social conditions, the high
performance teachers would like to teach in schools where implemented the merit pay for
teachers. According to Teacher Advancement Program Arizona, research found the tracking
61 teachers working in two schools with high socio-economic status and low social status in
Madison School District. These 2 groups survey showed that 79 percent of teachers moved to
schools where they get paid according to their teaching performance. Those teachers in merit
pay for teachers system were expected to solve problems (Stronge, Gareis, and Little, 2006).
In particular, those teachers have to provide further vision towards education. Therefore, in
schools where teachers got paid in merit pay for teachers system, public expected positive
effects on retention of effective and efficient teachers. Public also expected higher
EED 704 Seminar in Current Educational Issues
Cambridge College Fall 2012
Erik Wendelken
Stacey Williams
Ploy Khunisorn
educational standard based on merit pay system. If the best teachers have the highest teaching
standard, the new ambitious teachers will also want to win the best teachers. Therefore, they
have to increase the teaching performance in order to be the best of the best teachers in merit
pay for teacher system.
In conclusion, merit pay for teachers provides a lot of benefits to increase the
efficiency of the educational system. It increases not only teaching performance, but also
students’ learning results. Teaching and learning have much more criteria for achievement
than payments. The teachers’ responsibilities for dedication, creativity, and commitment to
manage classroom and students’ behaviors are the most important. Nevertheless, the
payments matter in term of fairness and assessment that each school should identify clearly to
eliminate the problems. However, no matter what remuneration of teachers will be, it has to
increase and reform the educational system, and support students to achieve their future
goals. If teachers encourage students to have positive attitudes towards their value of lives
and commitment to their goals, they are much more valuable than assessing students with the
competitive tests.
EED 704 Seminar in Current Educational Issues
Cambridge College Fall 2012
Erik Wendelken
Stacey Williams
Ploy Khunisorn
Reference
Brandt, R. M. (n.d). Incentive Pay and Career Ladders for Today's Teachers.
Drevitch, G. (2006). Merit Pay: Good for Teachers?. Instructor, 115(5), 21-23.
Fitzgerald T. (2007). Obama Tells Teacher He supports Merit Pay. Retrieved from
http://articles.philly.com/2007-07-05/news/24994720_1_democrat-obama-educationpolicies-work-in-lower-performing-schools
Johnson, S., & Papay, J. P. (2010). Merit Pay for a New Generation. Educational Leadership,
67(8), 48-52.
Jones B. (2009). Omaba Back Teacher Merit Pay. Retrieved from
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-03-10-obama-teachers_N.htm
Solmon L. (2007). The Effective of the Teacher Advancement Program. Retrieved from
http://www.fldoe.org/dpe/pdf/effectiveness-of-TAP.pdf
Malanga, S. (2001). Why Merit Pay Will Improve Teaching. City Journal
Noll J.Wm. (2010). Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Educational Issues. 15th Edition,
Expanded. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Ritter, G. W., & Jensen, N. C. (2010). The Delicate Task of Developing an Attractive Merit
Pay Plan for Teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, 91(8), 32-37.
Rosale J. (2006). Pay Based on Test Scores? Retrieved from
http://www.nea.org/home/36780.htm
Stronge, Gareis, and Little. (2006). Teachers’ Perceptions of Positive and Negative Outcomes
of Differentiate Pay. Retrieved from
http://athenaeum.libs.uga.edu/bitstream/handle/10724/10575/macleod_mary_j_20080
8_edd.pdf?sequence=1
Stutz, T. (2010, December 06). Study shows texas teacher merit pay helps keep staff slightly
helps test scores. The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved from
EED 704 Seminar in Current Educational Issues
Cambridge College Fall 2012
Erik Wendelken
Stacey Williams
Ploy Khunisorn
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20101206-study-shows-texasteacher-merit-pay-helps-keep-staff-slightly-helps-test-scores.ece
USNews. (2012). High School Teachers: Salary. Retrieved from
http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/high-school-teacher/salary
Wisconsin Educational Association Council. (2011). Research Briefs #20. Retrieved from
http://www.weac.org/pdf/2011-12/merit.pdf
EED 704 Seminar in Current Educational Issues
Cambridge College Fall 2012