[Vision2020] LEGISLATIVE NEWSLETTER III JANUARY 31 - FEBRUARY 4, 2011 (pay for performance)

[Brent Bradberry]

I thank Rep Trail for his excellent critique of Idaho's latest K-12 education reform plan. I have been retired for several years, but prior to that I was involved in a small way in working towards improving K-12 math/science education. It struck me back then that a recurring theme was "fix the teachers"; downplaying or ignoring the real problems of lack of funding, insufficient parental involvement, etc, etc. The latest plan seems to me to go a step further; to "ignore the teachers".

Most reform plans, including this latest one, have a "pay for performance" component. This idea sounds good and could in theory be supported by most stakeholders - but the devil is in the details. There are so many variables involved in student outcome that it is exceedingly difficult if not impossible to tease out the causal impact of teacher performance. Certainly a student's score on a standardized test is not a sufficient measure. A good illustration of the difficulty is to consider how to measure a physician's performance by patient outcome. A doctor whose patients are mainly elderly folks in advanced stages of cancer is highly unlikely to have many "good" outcomes. One approach to this problem is the "value added" approach, but this involves so much pre- and post-testing that not much time is left for learning.

So here is a question: do any visionaires have any suggestions about evaluating teacher performance based on student outcome, or is this problem still unsolved?

Brent Bradberry
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