In a stunning display Professor Jacob Vigdor, a Duke University economist,
contradicts his own “teacher pay” findings and recommendations in a recent
study — and the News and Observer does a poor job in reporting on it. In
drawing on a large teacher and student data base in North Carolina, Mr. Vigor
calls for “scrap(ping) the sacrosanct salary schedule” because experienced
teachers do not raise standardized
test scores at a commensurate rate relative to their lock-step pay raises and that
teaching experience and teacher preparation do not matter for improving
academic achievement.
However, in a previous study, which he co-authored,
Vigdor and colleagues concluded that “students ‘exposed’ to a teacher ‘with
very weak credentials….would be expected to achieve close to .30 standard
deviations lower that if they had a teacher with the strong set of credentials
(p. 29).” The largest negative effects were found to be if teachers were
inexperienced and if they entered teaching with an alternative certificate. The
N&O, one of North Carolina’s leading daily newspapers, misses the boat by
not carefully examining the data and not challenging assumptions that a
ivory-tower economist makes about teachers and teaching experience and what
standardized tests can and cannot measure.
Perhaps, T. Keung Hui, the
N&O staff writer, should turn to National Board Certified Teachers –who have proven to be more effective practitioners— to learn more about what matters most for student
learning. A group of NBCTs -- working with the Center for Teaching Quality -- recently released a major report on how our nation’s current standardized tests do NOT come close to measuring 21st century skills our public school students must develop. They clearly show how well-qualified, experienced teachers — who do not have the same job as other workers who sell widgets for a commission (as Vigdor suggests) — make a meaningful difference for the students and communities they serve. And they point out how our schools need to more carefully develop metrics for teaching effectiveness.
Teachers, especially our most accomplished ones, have been calling for new ways to pay teachers for advancing student learning, developing new and relevant skills, teaching in high needs schools and assignments, and leading reforms. However, just paying teachers more for test score gains won’t work not because of union resistance (as Mr. Vigdor says), but because the scores are too unstable to judge teachers solely on the basis of them. Mr. Vigdor and the N&O should ask the researchers who know the psychometrics* and the teachers who know the students. Then they could make a better case for much-needed teacher pay reforms.
*Braun,
H. 2005. “Using Student Progress to Evaluate Teachers: A Primer on Value-Added
Models.” Princeton: Educational Testing Service.
