The perils of obsessive measurement

[velvetpage]

This short essay describes the negative and unlooked-for (but easy to predict) effects of attempting to marry measurement of results with paying people for achieving them. Someone needs to forward it to the U.S. Department of Education, and to a variety of state departments of education. It's a clear, concise explanation of why merit pay is an absolutely abysmal idea, guaranteed to result in poorer outcomes for the students most in need of better ones. It's in the context of the British health care system.

Comments

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

So the implication for teaching is that if you pay teachers based on their students' test scores, teachers won't want the students who are least likely to either get high scores or improve their scores a lot, and will treat good test scores as a higher priority than actual learning?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Spec ed kids and inner-city kids get shafted. Teachers who have a choice (i.e. have enough seniority and/or pull) flock to suburban schools where the test scores reflect a better socio-economic level, leaving the kids most in need of good teachers to make do with newbies and nasties. People teach to the test, limiting students' exposure to things that might stretch them intellectually, because getting good grades means being conservative about what you attempt - and that doesn't lead to risk-takers or out-of-the-box thinkers. Teachers and principals will cheat to get the scores they need (this is already happening - the question is not if it's happening, it's where and by whom and how.) If test scores are in turn tied to acquisition of scarce resources (with the highest scoring schools getting the most) then school competition becomes fierce, and any hope of collaboration between teachers across schools goes up in smoke.