Engaging Educators
Daniel H. Pink's bestseller Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us addresses how to break out of what Pink calls "Motivation 2.0" thinking—a mentality that depends on carrots and sticks to the point that, in many cases, they have been inappropriately applied. "Motivation 2.0 still serves some purposes well," Pink writes. "Sometimes it works; many times it doesn't. And understanding its defects will help determine which parts to keep and which to discard as we fashion an upgrade."
This is exactly what Pink sets out to accomplish as he distills the research for us in an effort to close the gap between what science knows and what people actually do. After exposing some of the flaws in the way we currently motivate others at home, in business and in education, he offers specifics for fixing them. In this excerpt (reprinted with permission from the author and the Penguin Group), Pink specifically addresses the topic of "merit pay" for teachers.
Pay Teachers More Intelligently
One of the hottest topics in American education is so-called “merit pay” for teachers. The idea is that if we tie teacher salaries to student performance on test scores, we can hold schools accountable for results and incentivize teachers to work harder. Alas, the early evidence shows that this well-intentioned theory crumbles almost the moment it reaches the front steps of the schoolhouse. In several of the states that have tried this incentive plan, there have been many—often audacious—instances of cheating. And the first systematic study of “merit pay” in which middle-school math teachers in Nashville could earn up to $15,000 in bonuses for good test scores showed the program had zero impact on student performance. Not a modest impact or a minimal impact, but no impact at all. The report’s authors say that pay-for-performance for teachers is not “the magic bullet that so often the policy world is looking for."
Fortunately, there’s a better approach, one that’s more consistent with the science of motivation and easier for school districts to implement. First, raise the base pay of teachers. Too many talented people opt out of this career because they’re concerned about supporting their families. For prospective teachers, raising base salaries would remove an obstacle to entering the profession. For existing teachers, it’s a way to recognize the importance of their jobs without resorting to behavior-distorting carrots and sticks. As we’ve seen, the best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table. Raising base salaries would do that. Instead of fretting about paying their bills on an insufficient salary or scheming to get a small bonus, teachers could focus on the work they love.
Second, at the same time, we have to make it much easier to get rid of bad teachers. Teaching, like any profession, has its share of duds. Showing these folks the door, which now is quite difficult, is essential. It’s better for students, of course. But it’s also better for the teachers who remain. Just as it’s very motivating to have great colleagues, it’s incredibly de-motivating to have lazy or incompetent ones.
So instead of complicated merit pay schemes that are ripe for gaming and require massive resources to administer and track, we’re better off raising teachers’ base pay and making it easier to get rid of the awful ones. That solution is simpler, fairer, and much more consonant with what truly motivates people.
(For more on this topic, please see Daniel Pink's "Eight Brief Points About 'Merit Pay' for Teachers.")
