The Georgia General Assembly passed a bill (HB 280) which the Governor signed relating to the employment and pay for mathematics and science teachers.  The bill would boost new math & science teachers’ salaries by paying these new teachers the same salary as a fifth year teacher.  In effect, the boost would be about $4,561 and would mean that beginning math & science teachers in Georgia starting next year would earn $37,985.  The bill states that the teacher’s salary would then continue to rise a step for every year for five years.  After this period of time, these teachers’ salaries would be tied to student performance.  The bill for this reads as follows:

After five years, such teacher may continue to be attributed one additional year of creditable service on the salary schedule each year if he or she meets or exceeds student achievement criteria established by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement.

Although I am happy for the new math & science teachers, I have some real concerns about tying teacher salary to student achievement.  There are many factors that can be used to determine teacher  effectiveness.  Student achievement is only one such factor.  In a March 22 post, I argued that student science achievement is only one measure of teacher effectiveness.

The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement has a feature on the first page of its website that is like the scoreboard you would see if you visited the statistics page of the Major League Baseball (MLB) website.  There in lights would be the standings of each division in each of the two leagues.  You would know exactly where your team stands simply by looking at the online the scoreboard.

Indeed, The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement has a link to the GES—that’s Georgia’s Education Scoreboard.  No kidding!  If you click on it, up pops a scorecard comparing Georgia to the South East States (you can also click on a link to compare Georgia to the nation and look at prior years ).  Instead of batting average, games won, and lost, you will find statistics for categories including 4th grade math achievement, reading achievement, 8th grade math achievement, reading achievement, average ACT composite score, average SAT compostive score, high school grduation rate, bachelor’s degree holders.  Georgia wins some and loses some.  It is really interesting data.  But….hold on.

Most of what the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement touts makes one raise serious questions.  For example: How does one go about tying student achievement to teacher salary?  Trying to tie teacher salary to student achievement is not easy to validate as one might think.  The people in this office think it is.   For example, they have a post on their site in which they moan about National Board Certified Teachers.  What they claim is that the research does not support the notion that NBCTs are “master teachers.”  But according to NBCT, the National Research Council published a research study assessing “accomplished teaching (NBCT), and these teachers do indeed impact the learning environment and student learning.   In fact the data is quite overwhelming as to the effectiveness of NBCTers.  Click here to read more.

What is the problem here in Georgia?  Actually, what the Office of Student Achievement wants to do is reneg on the promise made to NBCTers in Georgia and instead install their own version of a “board certified” teacher.   Why?  Well, this is because Georgia has its own version of NBCT, and it’s called the Georgia Master Teacher Certification, and it is tied to student achievement based on standardized tests or on classroom assessments.  Hello behaviorism 101.

The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, the Georgia Department of Education, and the Georgia Professional Standards Commission controls the system of education, and the philosophy is rooted in behavioral psychology—a kind of large scale stimulus-response initiative.  It’s at odds with the philosophy of this blog which supports a humanistic and holistic view of teaching that is rooted in humanistic psychology and social constructivism.  Much of the innovation in science and mathematics education over the past 20 years has been based on these research paradigms.

I support the boost in salary for math and science teachers.  But I don’t agree that their salary after five years should be based on student achievement.  Do you think I am out of line here?  Am I missing something?  What do you think?