What's Hot in Ed. Policy for 2011

As we turn the last calendar page of the year, the ASCD policy unit bids adieu to the compelling people, policies, and activities of 2010 and predicts what will draw the attention of Educator Advocates in 2011.
 

OUT	IN
The 111th Congress	The 112th Congress
DREAM Act	COMPETES Act
House Education and Labor Committee	House Education and the Workforce Committee
School vending machines	School gardens
Targeted earmarks	Targeted tax cuts
Census	Congressional redistricting
State boards	School boards
Conservative Democrats	Conservative Republicans
Michelle Rhee	Cathie Black
Saving teachers' jobs	Cutting teachers' pensions
Waiting for Superman	Race to Nowhere
i3 grants	Vouchers
Reggie Bush's Heisman Trophy	Cam Newton's Heisman Trophy
Bullying	"It Gets Better"
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)	Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)

What are you leaving in 2010, and what's taking you into 2011?

Districts Depend on Principal Improvement, Too

While teacher improvement gets far more attention than principal improvement, both discussions have overlapping topics like best practices for induction, staffing, and how to deal with poor performers. Though indirect, principals have a large effect on student learning through how they match teachers and students and support teachers to work together and improve professionally. A good principal can also attract and retain talented teachers.

Milwaukee (Wisc.) Public Schools (MPS) is facing faces several challenges in filling principal vacancies in the district: decreased enrollment has likewise decreased funding, some managers are resistant to the influence of outside groups like New Leaders for New Schools, and induction and ongoing professional development programs for principals are insufficient.

The stakes are high for improving the principalship, but often, the support is low. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes, "In MPS, a growing number of smaller elementary schools have part-time principals. More than 20 assistant principal jobs were eliminated in the last year."

These cutbacks come at a time when principals are expected to play a larger role in instructional leadership—for example, modeling and observing lessons—on top of all their other building management and administrative tasks.

Milwaukee, like many other districts, is seeking an answer to the question: how can we develop and keep good principals?

Who Is This Person We Call Teacher? (1969)

Authors George E. Dickson and Samuel L. Creighton argue in the February 1969 issue of Educational Leadership that teachers are increasingly in the contradictory state of being more "militant" for social change, yet still overly conservative.

In "Who Is This Person We Call Teacher?" the authors lay out society's traditional view of teachers ("appreciators of excellence" and "enemies of shoddiness," among other traits) and issue a call for the profession to reconcile these two competing states.

Read the article: "Who Is This Person We Call Teacher?" (PDF)

Dickson and Creighton state that militancy is the "dominant characteristic that differentiates the contemporary teacher from his predecessor" and that this militancy is justified. In the wake of the social change of the 1950s and '60s, teachers were increasingly demanding better working conditions, more responsibility, and higher pay. Yet, the authors also express concern with what they see as a deep resistance to change among those in the profession and fear that teachers will be too reluctant to make necessary adjustments in areas such as thinking skills, vocational education, multicultural education, and teacher evaluation.

Although the profession has evolved and words like "militant" aren't employed as often to describe teachers, it's interesting to compare this call to action with the debates on teachers and teaching raging today on op-ed pages, movie screens, and blogs.

Confronting Racism with the Other R Word

Formerly a teacher, now an administrator-in-training, Chris Canter blogs about his yearlong assistant principal internship at Fulton County Public Schools in Atlanta, Ga.

I'm going to blog this week about an issue that has truly hit home during my time at my current school, but it is an issue that makes many uncomfortable: racial discrimination. As a white male at a school with a majority black student population (more than 96 percent), I have witnessed both ends of the spectrum and seen stereotypes labeled on both sides.

If we are to truly create inclusive environments for our students, we must understand that no single group is more prone to engage in racial stereotyping than another; rather, we are all human and humans tend to hunt for differences to confirm stereotypes.

What shocked me the most were the comments I overhead from faculty, some of the comments directly stated to me. The faculty consists of mainly black teachers, with a few white personnel in the building. I was told on day one by several folks, "If you can survive here, you can survive anywhere," and "Most white faculty at this school aren't successful. I hope you are." Another teacher told me, "We're taking bets on whether or not you will make it here, working with so many black students."

Needless to say, I was shocked. I have determined, however, to just do my job and do it well. For the most part, I have been very successful in my building, aiming to build relationships with faculty, students, and parents. I have had to acknowledge many of my own stereotypes and prejudices in the process of doing so, while also openly discussing and dispelling stereotypes with colleagues. In meetings with students, some have openly shared with me their distrust of white people (some due to past experiences).

What caused such a divide is probably way beyond my understanding. Since my time here is limited, I probably have little time to fix it. However, I will take this lesson with me to other schools as I work in my internship and finally land in an assistant principal position: I have found that building relationships, one at a time, has helped conquer many stereotypes.

How do some of you handle similar situations? How can we work with all students to create a more inclusive environment for everyone?

What Engages the Brain?

In Why Don't Students Like School, cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham describes true thinking (not just relying on memory or how you've always done something) as "slow, effortful, and uncertain." We tend to avoid this kind of thinking, Willingham says, unless our fragile curiosity is nurtured in an environment that includes

• challenge yet opportunities to be successful,
• adequate background knowledge in our long-term memory, 
• adequate environmental clues, and
• room in our working memory. 

Willingham makes several suggestions for enticing students through their brains:

• Plan lessons around essential questions and solvable problems.
• Respect students' cognitive limits, build in breaks, and make sure students have the background knowledge necessary to approach their work.
• Differentiate and tier assignments, maintaining the standard as the baseline.
• Play with pacing, and see how your class responds. The brain automatically responds to change; do your students need more or less of these to sustain interest?
• Instead of thinking in terms of relevance, which can be hard to pull off for diverse groups, consider the question that will engage students and make them want to know the answer.

Odds are that your lessons already include some or all of these strategies. Has brain-friendly engagement paid off in your classroom?

Gates's Survey Says: Test Score Growth Indicates Good Teacher

Teachers' past success raising student performance on state tests was one of the strongest predictors of their ability to do it again, the Gates Foundation reported last week in preliminary findings from a $45 million study of teacher effectiveness in several cities.

The cautions on moving forward with "value-added" teacher evaluations (a class's year-to-year growth in achievement measured in large part through gains on state tests) are many, for example:

• Many teachers teach subjects that are not measured on state tests.
• Students often rotate between multiple teachers.
• Maturation and other circumstances can affect when students are more or less likely to show academic gains.

The Washington Post reports, "The central finding [from Gates] indicates that teachers with 'value-added' ratings are able to replicate that feat in multiple classrooms and in multiple years." In addition,

• Teachers with high "value-added" ratings are able to help students understand math concepts or demonstrate reading comprehension through writing.
• The average student is able to recognize effective teaching.
• Multiple sources of data can help teachers improve.

The final report from this project, including analysis of thousands of hours of videotaped lessons, is due in winter 2011–12.

For remarks on why tests scores can't measure teacher effectiveness, check out 2009 National Teacher of the Year finalist Cindi Rigsbee's "Teacher Effectiveness: More Than a Number" in Teacher Magazine.

Is Gates's research helping spread good teaching practices, creating incentives to work with less-challenging students, or . . . ?

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the highlights from ASCD this week:

• Glenda Horner discusses what it's like to coach in the field of differentiated instruction.
• The International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership recently published a pair of articles on a new Saudi Arabian education strategy and another article on arts-based leadership in rural South Carolina. To view the full text of these articles, please click here.
• Mike Fisher recently watched a student-made Katy Perry video and it got him thinking about how engaged the students were. Fisher talks about how this is a "lesson event" that the students will never forget and how it is important for educators to create time for similar things in the classroom.
• During December, many students and teachers talk about the holidays including Santa and gifts. For ELL and other students, this can can be a controversial topic since many students do not celebrate Christmas and are from other faiths. Judie Haynes talks about the problems this can create in the classroom in regards to separation of church and state.

Add your own highlights in the comments, and check this spot for our regular weekly digest of ASCD activities.

Classroom Book of the Week

Like a restaurant that expertly specializes in one dish, the blog Classroom Book of the Week has a simple mission and successful product: every week, the blog features one elementary-level book and provides a multiple intelligences unit for that book. That's not quite all—occasionally, you'll find an author interview or other tidbit—but by and large, blogger Kate Narita sticks to the tried-and-true formula.

In late October, in the spirit of the season, the blog looked at the book The Perfect Pumpkin Pie, the story of a house haunted by a dogged pie chef. How does Narita translate this book into a multiple intelligences unit? Pie preference surveys leading to results displayed in pie charts, pumpkin-themed word games, and "perfect pumpkin paintings" are just a few of the varied activities she suggests. As with each entry, Narita includes a list of "book buddies," or related titles of interest.

Other recent titles in the blog's diverse lineup include Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlift's "Chocolate Pilot" and Tyrannosaurus Math.

 

"Flexible" Teaching or Fraudulent Teaching?

In "The Flexible Teacher," Leila Christenbury tells us that, having "concluded that few of [her] students would pass the course as currently constructed", she "jettisoned . . . deleted . . . truncated" some of the more challenging parts of her 300-level course on Teaching Writing Skills. Though acknowledging that "these changes may appear to have weakened the rigor of the original course," Christenbury concludes it was more important to give grades of A to 14(!) of the 18 students who otherwise "would falter . . . if not fail the course."

Christenbury calls these changes "compromise"; I call them fraud. I believe Christenbury perpetrated a fraud on at least three groups:

1. The college administration hired and paid her to teach an upper-level course that was cross-listed in both English and education, presumably with the understanding that an appropriate syllabus would be in place. Instead, 300-level requirements were "jettisoned," "deleted," "truncated."


2. The students, who voluntarily signed up for this course level, have been hoodwinked into thinking they are proficient at the skills supposed to have been mastered at this level. They may be in for a nasty surprise when they find they really do not have 300-level skills.


3. Anyone using the students' transcripts as the basis for judging their ability to perform at the 300 level would be misled about their mastery of high-level work. Would anyone recommend jettisoning, deleting, or truncating parts of a 300-level course in biochemistry or engineering? Heaven help us if we are to receive medical care or drive across bridges designed by students in such courses!

Do I believe there is an appropriate place for such flexibility in course requirements? Certainly.

What Other Countries Are Really Doing, Take Two

Last month I blogged at Washington Post's The Answer Sheet, asking people to look more closely at what other countries are really doing in education.

U.S. leaders say we must learn from and emulate what high-performing countries do—the only issue is that what Singapore and Finland talk about is not what's discussed in Education Nation or even in the Klein/Rhee Manifesto. Rather than "more standardized testing" it's actually "more PE and the arts." Here are two examples:

Singapore: Prime Minister Lee of Singapore (Aug. 29, 2010):

I think we should do more to nurture the whole child, develop their physical robustness, enhance their creativity, shape their personal and cultural and social identity, so that they are fit, they are confident, they are imaginative and they know who they are.

Finland: Timo Lankinen, Director-General, Finnish National Board of Education (Sept. 13, 2010):

We are not actually talking a lot about numeracy or literacy, the agenda for change is more about increase of the arts and physical education into curriculum, and the highlight of 21st century skills or as we call them citizen skills.

Yesterday, Hechinger Report's Justin Snyder gave us yet another, very worthwhile article that echoes these same messages. The article summarizes an interview with Pasi Sahlberg, director general of the Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation in Finland's Ministry of Education and Culture, about what Finland has been doing and what the United States is debating on . . .

More class time:

Sahlberg says, "There's no evidence globally that doing more of the same [instructionally] will improve results. An equally relevant argument would be, let's try to do less. Increasing time comes from the old industrial mindset. The important thing is ensuring school is a place where students can discover who they are and what they can do. It's not about the amount of teaching and learning."

National educational reform:

Sahlberg says, "Most educational ideas that we are employing are initially from the United States. If you want to learn something from Finland, it's the implementation of ideas. It's looking at education as nation-building. We have very carefully kept the business of education in the hands of educators. If you have people [in leadership positions] with no background in teaching, they'll never have the type of communication they need."

Value-added data:

Sahlberg says, "It's very difficult to use this data to say anything about the effectiveness of teachers. If you tried to do this in my country, Finnish teachers would probably go on strike and wouldn't return until this crazy idea went away. Finns don't believe you can reliably measure the essence of learning. You know, one big difference in thinking about education and the whole discourse is that in the United States it's based on a belief in competition. In my country, we are in education because we believe in cooperation and sharing. Cooperation is a core starting point for growth."

You can read more of this interview at the Hechinger Report.

Post submitted by Sean Slade, director of ASCD's Healthy School Communities

Project "Boys" (1965)

"A disproportionate number of the boys were poorly motivated for school and for life in general . . . . Our girls, on the other hand, presented minimal problems by comparison." This isn't a quote pulled from the latest "boy crisis" magazine cover story; it begins the article "Project 'Boys'" (PDF), which appeared in the September 1965 Educational Leadership.

Not only were boys, by and large, behind girls academically in author Kathryn Y. Hazeur's school in Wilmington, Del., but their hygiene and social skills were wanting, too: "The appearance of boys as far as grooming was concerned was not good, and the boys cared little about the impressions they made on others." Girls were taking on all of the leadership positions, from Safety Patrol to Student Council.

The school faculty discussed the issue and decided that boys were underexposed to positive male role models. The vast majority of school faculty were women, and the community was "essentially matriarchal . . . . The male image in the neighborhood ranked as one of lesser importance." Reaching out to the community, they arranged for a series of successful men to talk with the students and answer questions about their work and lives. Field trips designed to broaden boys' perspectives were arranged to coincide with teacher conference days to minimize class interruption.

The program, which was eventually extended to girls, offers only anecdotal evidence of success for the article, but it's difficult not to be optimistic about the school's efforts. Although present-day debates on gender and schooling get caught up with brain development and learning styles, this program's story remains an inspirational lesson in the power of introducing positive role models and real-world examples of success.

In "My Back Pages," we look at important issues through the historical lens of the Educational Leadership archives. ASCD members can access EL issues from 1943 to the present by signing in at www.ascd.org.

Change Is NOT Easy

Change in education does not come easy or without a fight. During the past four years as a high school principal, I have experienced many obstacles associated with the process of change, and many early initiatives often failed. In my mind, there are many factors which contribute to sluggishness and resistance.

1.  "I don't have the time for this": Ah, the old time excuse. This is probably the most common excuse given when educators and the thought or sight of change come together. If someone says they don't have time to work toward change that helps to achieve important goals, then they should question why they are in the field of education. Dedicated educators make the time because it is their job! You ask any child who had a teacher that turned his life around and he will tell you that the time spent was priceless!

2.  Lack of collaboration: The field of education has been moving from a profession that hoarded ideas, lessons, and successful strategies to one that is openly willing to share this bounty with as many passionate educators as possible. Innovation and change are a collective process and schools that get this concept have personnel who routinely collaborate amongst each other and with those outside of their schools. "Together we are better" is the motto that change agents abide by.

3. Directive approach: OK, I have been guilty of this when trying to get my staff to utilize Skype. Thankfully, I learned from this mistake and have found that change occurs through shared decision making, consensus, collaboration, and modeling. As a leader, I had better be able to effectively model what I want my teachers to implement if I have any hopes of seeing the idea succeed and be sustainable. You need to get each and every stakeholder involved in the process, properly model the strategy, and put the time forth to ensure successful implementation.

4. Poor professional development: How many times have we sat through training sessions that were boring, meaningless, and didn't provide any practical implementation ideas? Professional development has to be relevant to teachers, contain numerous choices, and be hands-on. More often than not this can be done with teacher leaders present in all buildings. If money is going to be spent make sure it is on a vetted, well-respected presentation where you will get your money's worth.

It is time to move past the plethora of excuses and embrace transformational change that will cultivate learning cultures that meet the needs of all students and provide meaningful growth opportunities for each and every educator.

What do you think? Are my factors accurate? Have you experienced them? What did I miss?

Post submitted by Eric Sheninger, Principal at New Milford High School, New Milford, N.J., and a 2011 Annual Conference Scholar.

Gates Goes to the Tape for Teacher Evaluations

Last week's big news came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is investing $335 million to overhaul the personnel departments of several big school systems. A large portion of the foundation's investment will finance research by dozens of social scientists and thousands of teachers to develop a better system for evaluating classroom instruction.

Educators and researchers will analyze thousands of hours of videotaped lessons to identify attributes of good teaching and possible correlations between certain teaching practices and high student achievement, as measured by value-added scores, the New York Times reports. The effort aims not just to evaluate teachers on multiple measures of effectiveness (the NYT article lists value-added measures as a starting point), but also to help teachers improve by learning from talented colleagues.

Gates's research could also lead to wider use of video observations of teachers—a potential boon to time-strapped administrators who are now required to observe teachers several times throughout the year. However, it's also problematic to judge teachers remotely through a single lens (literally).

Would you participate in video observations? Under what circumstances? Do you see the potential to learn from peers' taped lessons? What's gained or lost in the shift from analog to digital methods?

In Case You Missed It

Here's our weekly rundown of what's been happening at ASCD:

• Make sure you register for Carol Ann Tomlinson's and Marcia Imbeau's upcoming webinar, "Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom." During this webinar, the authors will address the tough questions that educators face while trying to manage a productive classroom. The webinar will be held January 4, 2011.
• To see other upcoming webinars and to check out the archive which includes Hedi Hayes Jacobs' recent entry, please visit ASCD's webinar homepage. 
• The most recent issue of ASCD Express look at what it takes to be an effective educator in the modern classroom. Read about what educators have to say about their own experiences and learn how they can help you.
• The December 2010 sale book Breaking Free from Myths About Teaching and Learning: Innovation as an Engine for Student Success is now available online. Check out the free chapters from the book and the study guide available now.
• ASCD EDge bloggers have been busy this week posting their thoughts on grading scales, gifted and talented students, school dress policies, and many other topics.

Add your own highlights in the comments, and check this spot for our regular weekly digest of ASCD activities.

PISA Panic Is the Wrong Push for School Improvement

Make no mistake, the results of the latest PISA tests, providing international comparisons of K–12 education proficiency, are not great for the United States. But equally important, they aren't terrible either, though you wouldn't know that from the auto-reflexive lament of U.S. leaders about what a lousy education system they lead.

"Average" does not equal abysmal, but that is what you would think based on the quotes in most press reports highlighting the United States' ranking among its international peers. According to the new PISA results (tests administered to 15-year-olds in reading, math, and science), the United States was 17th out of 65 nations in overall reading performance, 31st in mathematics, and 23rd in science. In other words, and as the PISA results spell out, the U.S. performance is average as compared to other countries in reading and science and slightly below average in math.

Even taking into account the impressive performance of new PISA test-taker, Shanghai, a Chinese city of 20 million that outperformed every other country in all three categories, the United States' rankings are hardly the "Sputnik" moment that President Obama and Chester Finn think (hope?) it is—a galvanizing shock to the U.S. psyche that preys on their worst fears about a loss of national security to a communist competitor.

Maybe it is the ritualistic howl of failure from policymakers that tells us more about them and the quality of the schools than any test results. What does it say about leaders who rely on lurching from one crisis to the next in order to marshal public opinion in support of their reform plans?

What does it say about the education of the U.S. public that reason and logic are no match for hysteria and panic as motivating appeals to improve their children's schools?

There is room and a need for improvement, to be sure, but U.S. students and teachers didn't fail PISA. The same cannot be said of official reaction to the results.

The Power of Laughter

Formerly a teacher, now an administrator-in-training, Chris Canter blogs about his yearlong assistant principal internship at Fulton County Public Schools in Atlanta, Ga.

I'm amazed at the power of the response an administrator gives a student; our reactions can make or break a teachable moment, whether in regards to behavior, academics, or relationships. One of my favorite proverbs is Proverbs 17:22, "A merry heart doeth good [like] a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones." Sometimes the best way to defuse a situation or to really break down barriers between two parties is to allow a little bit of laughter when it's needed and appropriate.

A few weeks ago, a student sat in my office. She was visibly upset. The student had come down to tell me how mean the teacher had been to her. Once we began talking, I realized that a student had not understood the words the teacher had used when speaking to her. The teacher had told the student, "I have noticed that you cower if I call on you in class. Are you struggling with the current concept?" The student was outraged. She told me that she was not a coward and she didn't appreciate the teacher calling her one.

Once I shared the meaning of the word 'cower' with the student, she sat there, and then began to chuckle. She then said, "Oh, I totally misunderstood her then?" I replied, with a slight smile, "Yes." We both began to laugh and then proceeded to have a conversation about how it appeared the teacher was trying to help the student, not berate her. The student and the teacher have some history, so there is some frustration there. The laughter and the incident did open the door for me to discuss some strategies with the student to help bridge the relationship with her teacher. In fact, this conversation was the first time that the student truly seemed engaged and open to repairing the situation. It also opened a door for me to speak to the teacher and help the teacher find some common ground with the student to break down some relational barriers.

When the student and I began to laugh, I noticed the entire climate of the office changed: the tension subsided and clear communication truly began. Sometimes we get so busy with the stress of our profession that we forget how powerful and rewarding remaining opening to laughter can truly be.

How to Stop Bullying

Today, when school safety gets daily buzz, few issues threaten students like bullying. Whether through stealthy whispering campaigns, high-tech slagging that goes viral, inappropriate physical contact, or outright violence, many students suffer the psychological, emotional, and physical effects of school bullying—often daily. How do school staff take a stand to stop bullies in their tracks and ensure that a culture of mutual respect flourishes in their school? How should schools support the victims of bullying? What anti-bullying policies significantly reduce or eliminate name calling, demeaning, and physically hurting classmates? How can schools involve families to tackle bullying?

ASCD Express is looking for short, 600 to 1,000-word essays on the theme "How to Stop Bullying." Guidelines for submissions are here. Please send us your submissions by December 22, 2010.

Why Boys Fail

Those with more than a passing interest in gender and education should find Richard Whitmire's blog Why Boys Fail, hosted by Education Week, a must-read. Whitmire, a former USA Today editorial writer and author of a book that shares his blog's name, believes that "as the world has become more verbal, schools have allowed boys to slip behind in literacy skills. Boys conclude that 'schooling' is for girls, who are proving to be more adept at absorbing these early literacy demands. Boys then seek other outlets for their energy and creativity."

Whitmire, as you might expect from a former editorial writer, blogs with a strong voice and is particularly vocal in his dismay that the U.S. Department of Education will not "acknowledge the problem exists" or research the effect of approaches such as single-sex education. He doggedly tracks research from around the world, much of which finds boys lagging behind as he sees them doing in the United States; a recent post noted that women now outnumber men more than 4-to-1 at Cairo University.

It's not all gloom and doom at Why Boys Fail, though; Whitmire is happy to discover approaches that seem to be working at closing gender gaps, such as a Massachusetts school that integrated literacy throughout the curriculum. And he brings passion and curiosity to the issue, often expanding the scope of his inquiry to broader sociological issues, such as the impact of the "boy crisis" on marriage.

Why Feeling Good Can Help You Get Good at Math

Emotional filters in the brain can block information from traveling to the prefrontal cortex, where higher-order thinking skills are concentrated. In this excerpt from her recent book, Learning to Love Math, neurologist and classroom teacher Judy Willis presents strategies for getting past these filters by helping students develop a positive attitude toward math. They include

• Recruiting parents as "math allies" who integrate low-stress math practice into their child's daily life.
• Allowing retests as a way not only to build math confidence but also to build foundational skills.
• Showing the practical and creative applications of math in everyday life.

It's important that students learn to love math, Willis writes, because "when you increase your students' positive feelings toward mathematics, you unlock their brains' math-blocking filters, promote long-term memory, and foster greater understanding beyond rote memorization."

How do you promote positive learning experiences?

Merit Pay: Logic Turned on Its Head

Merit-pay debates smack of something out of Alice in Wonderland. Merit-pay advocates want to make it about money—until they don't want to make it about money.

If teachers could get a deal like Wall Street bankers, bonuses would look good to them, too. On Wall Street, apparently 90 percent of your bonus is just about showing up. Failed banks and "investment" firms handed out billions of dollars in bonuses after they got their bailout money from U.S. taxpayers.

Why are these people griping about the public school teachers' salary schedule? And why would teachers take advice from the very business types who lost these teachers' pension savings—after taking their own annual bonuses?

Here's what I see in the merit-pay plans I've looked at—granted, it's only anecdotal—but I'm waiting for a big grant from a hedge fund so I can do real research:

• Merit-pay plans become ever more complicated and an accounting nightmare for teachers and administrators, begging the question, "Does this or this or this count for my bonus?"
• People game the system, low-balling annual goals to guarantee a bonus. They're not stupid.
• In many cases, especially when only small amounts of money are available for bonuses, it's more about the recognition than the money. The money becomes symbolic of value, which causes even more problems among the staff.
• To keep the salary schedule from falling into total chaos, school districts devise multiple ways of earning merit pay and salary advances. This further diminishes the link between student achievement and teacher bonuses.
• Teachers and administrators start to look at students differently: "Hmm, how will this new student, Jaunito, figure into my chances of getting bonus money?"
• Core-subject teachers (those who teach state-tested subjects) and noncore teachers start looking at one another with animus and suspicion; it’s that old “fairness” thing so prevalent in school culture.
• Good teachers with options leave for a more sane work environment.

Troy Tulowitzki, the shortstop for the Colorado Rockies, just signed a long-term contract for $164 million. Most of us here in Colorado are happy about it. We think "Tulo" is great. His contract is loaded with bonus incentives for reaching certain annual goals, like a high batting average, winning a gold glove for fielding excellence, and helping the team make it to the World Series. Rockies fans, like me, hope he does that and more. If Tulo can do some or all of that stuff, the Rockies will sell more tickets.

If Mrs. Jones from Pine Beetle, Colo., gets 100 percent of her 5th grade class to proficient on the state test, we should celebrate that, too. But taxes don't go up in Pine Beetle to pay for this when it happens. Get it?

Post submitted by Al Ramirez, professor in the Department of Leadership, Research, and Foundations, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; and author of "Merit Pay Misfires" in the December/January issue of Educational Leadership.