Idaho law now requires that school districts adopt some sort of pay-for-performance plan. At first glance, it seems simple: you pay those who perform, and you do not pay those who don’t. Actually, at this point, it starts to get complicated.
What kind of performance is we going to pay for, what constitutes that performance, and how do we know when we are getting it? What will be the criteria for measurement? Who will do the evaluating and how will it be done? How will compensation be distributed? Is the idea to improve instruction or to save money? (One does not necessarily imply the other). To reward or to with hold?
Questions like these make teachers suspicious of the efficacy of pay-for-performance schemes, their fairness, and the motives behind them – looking for the catch, the gotcha. This is especially true when the discourse starts taking on a punitive tone as it so often does, or when it promises to be cheaper.
“Performance” is generally regarded in one of two ways, output and input. Output usually means student performance as expressed by scores on certain selected standardized tests, although such a definition is unnecessarily limited and is not even the most relevant measurement. By input we mean those practices that are expected to have a positive effect on student performance. Is the idea to improve instruction or student performance on certain tests? (One does not necessarily imply the other). In general, Reformists focus on output. Set a standard level of scores, demand it, penalize with sufficient severity failure to meet the standard, reward those who meet or exceed it. Teachers will then conform, and improved instruction must necessarily accrue. On the other hand, we can believe that if we define, based on research, the best instructional practices, if we foster those practices, and if we evaluate teachers’ performance on how well and how consistently they implement best practices in their classrooms, student performance will improve.
Therefore, we have two basic approaches to pay-for-performance, merit pay, alternative compensation (the most inclusive term, which subsumes the other two), or whatever you want to call it, can be based on output or on input. Output consists primarily of what students do, usually and unfortunately, although not necessarily, measured in terms of scores on certain standardized tests. The question then becomes do we reward (or penalize) teachers individually for their performance, or do we reward schools as a whole for improved performance, with all teachers in that school sharing the bonus, raise, or other compensation equally? Input is what teachers do, whether on individual initiative or as mandated by policy. Input is usually evaluated in terms of observed teacher behavior. A rational alternative compensation would include both.
This brings us, finally, to today’s topic. According to the October 25 Idaho Statesman, at least three south Idaho school districts have chosen to link performance bonuses to parent involvement. We assume that if parents are involved in a child’s schooling, the child’s performance will benefit. The involved parent will monitor the child’s progress, will encourage good study habits at home, guide the child to take the right courses, etc. All largely true, I believe, although I don’t know what the evidence, what studies have been done. My “evidence” is anecdotal. At the extreme of involvement, we have the “tiger mom,” who overtly and constantly pressures her children to succeed. Another example, not so positive is the possibly apocryphal tale of the Parent Organization president who, at a meeting, got in the principal’s face and said “Watch your step, Sweetie, because from now on, you are going to be taking your orders from me!”
What constitutes positive parent involvement? How can the teacher individually and/or the school as a whole achieve/encourage/develop it? How can it be evaluated/measured/quantified in such a way that it may be somehow incorporated into teachers’ pay scales.
As a retired English teacher, I am especially intrigued by the Writer’s Room concept that I heard presented by Ellen Kolba and Sheila Crowell, both from Montclair, New Jersey, at NCTE in Portland, Oregon,1994. The program is still around http://www.writersroomprogram.org/index.htm. The idea is to recruit parents and other community members and train them to be volunteer writing coaches. I thought then and think now that it is worth study and emulation, but it would be a most elaborate and ambitious undertaking. It would involve relatively few parents in a very intensive role. It would involve the few teachers who would initiate and run it. It would need the blessings and cooperation of the administration, although I do not think it would work very well if it were an administrative initiative, and it would be sad if, after teachers got it going, the administration were to highjack it. Because it would involve a limited number of teachers doing a great deal of work, it would most logically be compensated by some sort of supplementary contract. The effectiveness of such a program could actually be tested and evaluated. Other programs involving numbers of volunteers could be treated similarly.
When we think of parent involvement, we often think of teachers contacting parents concerning students’ progress or lack thereof. This is involvement of a sort, although it puts the parent in a passive role. Traditionally, it is done by telephone, more recently by email. Sometimes such contact is not merely appropriate, but essential if the student is doing poorly or is behaving badly. It is easy to understand the frustration of a parent when Johnny brings home a full slate of Fs, yet there was no previous clue that he was falling behind. And there is something to be said for a parent hearing from Teacher that Johnny is doing just fine and there are no problems. But if every teacher calls every parent of every child, the result can be more parental annoyance than enlightenment. I have run into this during years when administrators were insistent on lots of calling. Calling can be surprisingly time-consuming. Parents are not always home, and the result is phone-tag. Email has always worked better for me, but not every home has access to email. For that matter, not every home has landline service, or a consistent cell number, or a permanent address.
These particular districts are thinking specifically of attendance at parent-teacher conferences. This seems to be a sane idea if it is instituted properly. Teacher involvement in parent-teacher conferences – a promising concept. But the devil is in the details, the old saying goes. Here are a few of those pesky details:
There is more than one flavor of parent-teacher conference. A popular configuration has the teacher in her room. Parents are scheduled appointments in l5, or 30, or whatever minute, time slots. This is, perhaps, more popular at the elementary level, but in the high school where I taught, for a few years we experimented with a system called Advisory. Each teacher was assigned a group of about 30 9th graders. This group stayed together, with the same teacher through all four years. The idea was that over time, we would get to know them intimately. We met periodically, as a class, every two weeks, as I recall, during a period created by shortening all the other periods. Once a semester, we scheduled evening conferences with parents, by appointment, one set of parents at a time. Contacting parents and getting them to attend was sometimes problematical, some seemed to resent being “summoned” whether they deemed a conference necessary or not, and some refused or just didn’t show up. Conferences were often perfunctory. I would hate to have had my bonus or raise riding on parent participation under this system.
A popular means of establishing parent-teacher contact is the child’s abbreviated daily schedule – “Back to School Night” – that parents are marched through from class to ten minute class, the teacher in each doing a prepared dog-and-pony show, being saved by the bell from any real contact. In my experience, the whole thing is rushed, and there is little actual communication with individual parents.
Much more effective, in my opinion, is face-to-face contact with individual parents. In one variety, each teacher is in his room, and parents, guided by their child’s schedule, go on their own from one to the next. This is less rushed, but parents may get lost or run out of time to get to all the teachers. Also, teachers often are nervous about this one because they are isolated, with little likelihood of intervention by administrators or colleagues, if a conference turns ugly. As long as parents keep coming in a steady stream, there is no problem, but being berated for a full half hour with no end in sight is nobody’s idea of a good time.
At the high school where I taught, we did conferences a little differently for virtually all of the 28 years I was there. This model is by far the most satisfactory I have experienced. At the end of a quarter, twice a year, all teachers were gathered together in a large space like the gymnasium or the lunch room, seated at tables, usually arranged alphabetically or by department. Upon arrival, parents would first meet with the guidance where they could pick up their children’s report cards. They would then make the rounds, visiting teachers in any order. It sounds clumsy and chaotic, but it was not. The length of a conference was perfectly flexible, depending only on how long a line was waiting. And line length was seldom a problem because parents waiting in a long line would usually see that another of their child’s teachers had little or no line. As a result, lines evened themselves out, and long waits were the exception. I was seldom idle and seldom had a line backed up. I always brought with me two copies of my grade book print-out (one for me and one for the parents so that no one had to read upside down). I could explain and demonstrate assignment by assignment how the grade was derived. I could show which assignments received low graded because they were poorly done, and which because they had been late. Most important, I could point out exactly any that had not been turned in. I had my roll sheets with me so that we could examine patterns of absence and tardiness if these were problems. We always had time (or took the time) for a thorough discussion. If there was no line, there might be time for a little schmoozing, chatting each other up. That is never time wasted. In later years, we could exchange e-mail addresses because I could always communicate better and in more detail that way than by phone. I thought it worked very well and was surprised that not all districts did it that way.
One principal did not like this system. He tried to discontinue these parent-teacher conferences and replace them with Advisory conferences. He said they were a waste of time, and pointed out that we never met 100% of the parents. In practice, I could be visited by as few as 30% of parents, as many as 50%, not 100% attendance, to be sure, but more substance, more accomplishment than any other system I have encountered. With Union assistance, we were able to carefully parse Master Contract language and demonstrate that Advisory Conferences did not meet the definition of Parent-Teacher conferences. For a while, we had both kinds, and maybe that was not a bad thing.
So much for these musings on Parent-Teacher conferences as the most likely form of parent involvement. The next question takes us back to the original proposition: pay-for-performance. These southern Idaho districts are basing performance and therefore pay, on parent attendance at conferences, not, in and of itself unreasonable.
But how will it be done? Parent-Teacher conferences or any sort of parent involvement must somehow be monetized.
Here, it begins to get complicated. Will each teacher somehow be graded on how many parents attend? Will it be a matter of each teacher’s parental attendance? Will compensation be based on the percentage of parents attending or on an absolute number? The parents of students in some courses are more likely to attend than others; for example, AP parents tend to have good attendance, better than parents of students in general classes. Will some teachers have an inherent advantage because their students belong to a more affluent demographic? Will it be a sliding scale, or all-or-nothing? Or will the bonuses (or whatever they will be) be based on each school’s parental attendance as a whole, with the whole faculty reaping the rewards?
Details, details. The Devil is in the details.
