Performance-Based Incentives and School Reform
In “Respecting Teachers in the Sunshine State,” a recent City Journal opinion piece, Marcus Winters argues that the new Florida law that effectively eliminates tenure for new hires, abolishes seniority-based layoffs, and allows educators’ salaries to be determined through performance-based schedules will save the educational system, which currently “treats teachers like interchangeable widgets.”
Jack Gillum and Marisol Bellow explore high erasure rates on tests in high performing D.C. schools in “When Standardized Test Scores Soared in D.C., Were the Gains Real?“ Many schools that received performance bonuses had much higher than average rates of wrong answers changed to correct ones, triggering investigations. Most of the schools were cleared; however, uncertainty about the data still remains. The article raises questions about whether pressures to achieve performance-based incentives might lead to corrupt behavior.
Finally, this recent feature in New York magazine takes a look at Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public school system, and her educational reform agenda.
