Merit Pay

DENVER -- In what would be the nation's most far-reaching plan to make teachers accountable for their students' academic progress, members of the Denver teachers union are expected to approve a pilot program today that would link raises to their students' performance.Other districts reward teachers for meeting goals set at the start of the school year, and some, including Columbus, Ohio, pay teachers bonuses for student achievement. But if the two-year Denver pilot plan leads to a permanent system, traditional criteria for annual raises, such as years of service and cost-of-living allowances, would be scrapped for salary increases based solely on classroom results.

Outcome-based pay for teachers may hurt poorer school districtsThe state plans to judge and pay teachers across the state based on how their students perform on the same achievement tests ("Success carries teacher reward," Oct. 10).That's like taking 1,000 dressmakers, randomly supplying them with different cloth from burlap to silk, and different caliber sewing machines, then judging them on the garments they produce.If one were applying for a teaching job in a job-seekers' market, and knew you'd be paid more if your students could perform well on some achievement test, where would you agree to teach?

CHARLES I. ECKER received new ammunition in his quest to squeeze more efficiency out of county government in Howard: A $55,000 report which concludes that many county workers are overpaid and underworked. The county executive and fellow Republicans on the County Council have sought to revamp the personnel system with a merit-pay apparatus. They now have 95 typewritten pages of support for the idea.The study, by San Diego-based Organizational Consulting Center, built its recommendations largely on comments from 120 county managers.

Some people would rather swap an NFL franchise in Baltimore for NAACP headquarters in Charlotte.It isn't hard for an illegal alien to get caught in this country. All you have to do is preach violence and hatred to people who act on it.Civil service unions oppose merit pay. Otherwise, they wouldn't be civil service unions.

The police union and county negotiators failed to agree on a new contract last week, escalating fears that officers will work without a contract next month."

Police officers will go to work July 1 without a contract because their union and the county failed to reach a new agreement by Friday's deadline.Meeting the deadline would have given the County Council just enough time to consider and approve a new contract before the current one expires June 30.Supporters of police officers protested the stalemate for two days last week in front of the Howard government building in Ellicott City. About 20 wives, children and friends of officers picketed and chanted at noon each day to protest what they consider unfair treatment of the police union by County Executive Charles I. Ecker.

The Howard County administrator told about 100 county employees at a hearing last night that the passage of bills that could eliminate merit pay and longevity bonuses for the next fiscal year and permit furloughing could reduce the number of layoffs by as many as 60 employees."

The salaries for some city administrators increased 12 1/2 percent this year, irking city council members who say these raises are inappropriate during hard economic times.Mayor Alfred Hopkins strongly defended his decision to grant the incremental merit pay increases tohis staff and Cabinet. If the aldermen want to propose a change, he said, they should change it with legislation.Late yesterday, Alderman Wayne Turner, R-Ward 6, took up the mayor's challenge, promising to introduce a bill in December that would stop all merit increases until Annapolis knows what kind of financial shape it is in.Figures released this month by the city finance office show that eight members of Hopkins' staff received 5 percent payraises in July.

Union warily eyes merit payWASHINGTON -- Changes must be made in the current labor law if merit pay is to be used for federal workers, according to the American Federation of Government Employees."

Despite an expected $25 million drop in county revenues next year, the county personnel board asked the Ecker administration Monday to try to give employees some sort of merit pay increase for satisfactory performance.For more than a decade, the county has given a 5 percent merit raise annually to employees whose work is deemed satisfactory. The county also paid premiums to workers who have special skills or work odd hours, as well as cost-of-living adjustments and longevity bonuses.County Executive Charles I. Ecker, faced with an expected budget shortfall of at least $25 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1, had asked the personnel board to consider three pieces of legislation that would allow the county to omit the raises this year.

A better approach to school reform The more I hear and read about President Barack Obama's declarations about our public schools, the more concerned and confused I become ("Obama offers education plan," March 11). Therefore, may I suggest that the president and Education Secretary Arne Duncan work to better organize the nation's public school systems instead of announcing proposed programs of grants, incentives, rewards and merit pay? Since the international ranking of the performance of U.S. public school students is relatively low, real changes must be instigated to ensure our students become more competitive.

Summer hiatus limits learning It's safe to predict that President Barack Obama's proposal for longer school days and extended school years will never get anywhere and quickly vanish from the media radar screen ("Obama offers education plan," March 10). This idea is almost universally opposed - by teachers, parents and most of the education establishment. Yet anyone who pays attention to international assessments knows that one of the reasons U.S. students fare so poorly is that they (unlike their peers in most nations)

Faced with worsening economic conditions, employers are planning to dole out even smaller salary increases this year, according to a new survey. And given the climate, some workers might not see raises at all. HR consulting firm Hewitt Associates found that workers could see an average base pay raise of 3 percent, which is less than the 3.8 percent employers had projected in July. "It's not a pretty picture out there," says Ken Abosch, Hewitt's North American practice leader for compensation consulting.

Under an employment contract he fought to keep out of the public eye, outgoing Morgan State University President Earl S. Richardson could become a $300,000-a-year president emeritus with minimal teaching duties when he steps down at the end of the next year. The contract also protects the veteran state employee's post-presidential benefits even if Richardson were to be fired for incompetence or misconduct - a shelter from accountability that is unusual for public-college presidents in Maryland and around the country, experts say. Richardson, 65, drew attention to his $389,000-a-year salary and contract last month when he refused to release the document - considered a public record under Maryland law - to one of his most outspoken critics in the General Assembly.

From rural Washington County to suburban Prince George's County, school systems around the state are beginning to wade into a promising but controversial topic in education: pay for performance. School officials are starting to offer teachers and principals extra pay or bonuses when they take on challenging assignments or raise test scores. So a Prince George's County teacher could earn a bonus of up to $10,000 a year, and a Baltimore principal might someday get an extra 10 percent for exemplary work.

Among the many things on Congress' agenda is reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law, which was passed with bipartisan support during President Bush's first year in office and went into effect in 2002. The law, which has come under increasing criticism, still represents some important policy choices that should be preserved - notably, improving academic performance, particularly among disadvantaged students, and eliminating achievement gaps among different racial groups. But many of NCLB's practical applications need to be overhauled, which is why the reauthorization has become a drawn-out affair.

Should teachers be paid on the basis of performance? Although merit pay has long ruffled feathers in the profession, many school districts have successfully implemented extra-pay-for-performance programs, and it's an idea whose time may have come in Baltimore. The new schools CEO, Andres Alonso, has spoken favorably, and rightly so, of monetary rewards for teachers in challenging schools who manage to improve student performance. Increased emphasis on merit or differential pay has been fueled, in part, by the federal government.

In an era of high-stakes testing in American public schools, politicians around the country are looking for strategies to motivate teachers. And in city after city, state after state, they are turning to financial rewards for those who take on tough assignments and produce gains in test scores. Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. signed on to the trend last week, saying that if he is re-elected, he will allocate $800,000 next year for school systems to design a teacher incentive pay program.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said he wants to pay teachers based on the performance of their students, and Mayor Martin O'Malley proposed huge bonuses for principals who agree to serve in troubled schools, as both candidates for governor clashed again yesterday over how best to educate the state's children, the dominant issue of this year's campaign. Ehrlich, speaking before the State Board of Education in Baltimore, also unveiled a plan to improve the quality of principals, promising to put $1.6 million in his next budget for a school administrator leadership academy.

A commission appointed by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. has come up with some interesting, though hardly new, ideas for improving education in Maryland. Asked to look at issues that affect high academic achievement, the commission has offered 30 recommendations that range from the prosaic, such as more parental and community involvement, to the provocative, such as merit pay for teachers and principals. Mr. Ehrlich has announced a meeting in November with the commission and other interested parties to continue the discussion and to further refine a legislative package that he hopes will pass muster with the General Assembly.