Younger Teachers Support Incentive Pay, Report Says

By SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 11/4/2009

The latest crop of young teachers says they don’t mind being rewarded with incentive pay, but they also don’t think their success should solely be based on how students perform on standardized tests, says a new report.

“Supporting Teacher Talent: The View From Generation Y” offers a look at the question of whether different generations bring different aspirations, concerns, and perspectives to teaching.

It found that 71 percent of the 890 young public school teachers surveyed nationwide say they’re open to rewarding teachers based on incentive pay. But at the same time, only 10 percent think that student performance on standardized tests is an “excellent” measure of teacher success.

“Traditionally, teachers have strongly opposed differentiating pay based on student performance, but we found evidence that those attitudes may be changing among Gen Y teachers,” say Jane Coggshall, one of the principal investigators for the study by Public Agenda, a nonprofit research organization, and Learning Point Associates, a nonprofit education research and consulting organization. “However, young teachers, like teachers of all ages, are concerned about using standardized test scores as the principal criterion.”

The study explores the attitudes of young K-12 teachers toward how they want to be compensated and examines how they view teachers’ union. Most teachers under the age of 32 support incentive pay for those who consistently work harder and put in more time and effort than other teachers. Some 25 percent says they are “strongly” in favor.

Sabrina Laine, chief program officer for educator quality at Learning Point Associates, says the study sends a “strong message to school leaders who need to recognize that to retain our best teachers, it is imperative to support teacher effectiveness through improved teaching and learning conditions because teachers, more than anything, want to make a difference for their students.”

Teachers born between 1977 and 1995 also say they’re deeply concerned about using standardized test scores to measure their performance, with 72 percent of them saying it’s unfair to tie teacher pay to how well students perform when so many things that affect learning are beyond their control.

Although they welcome incentive pay, young teachers don’t rank it high on a list of strategies for improving teaching. In fact, tying teacher rewards to student performance ranked last among 12 proposals. Those that ranked higher include requiring new teachers to spend more time teaching in classrooms under the supervision of experienced teachers; requiring that teacher get tested on their knowledge of the subjects they teach; and ensuring that the latest technology is available in each classroom to aid instruction.

A growing number of young teachers also express concern that their unions sometimes protect seriously underperforming teachers, with 66 percent of those surveyed agreeing that unions sometimes fight to protect teachers who should no longer teach, compared with 48 percent of teachers who agreed with this statement in 2003.

The study is based on six focus group interviews conducted throughout the country as well as a national, random-sample survey of 890 public school teachers conducted in the spring and summer 2009, including an over sample of 241 teachers aged 32 and under. The report was underwritten by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Joyce Foundation.