Why Merit-Based Pay for Teachers Would Be a Fail for Student Learning

It sounds like a reasonable idea, but a closer look shows some impossible flaws.

A former student reached out on X last week with a link to this clip and a question: What do I think of merit-based pay for teachers?

Well hello, Sean and Vivek.

Vivek Ramaswamy has provided a lot of good conversation starters over the last two years. I’ve listened to a bunch of his speeches and podcast appearances.

He’s an interesting guy.

He’s said a lot about returning to democratic principles, unleashing free enterprise, restoring government transparency, and building an optimistic vision for America’s future.

He’s said a lot of helpful things and proposed some good ideas.

This, my friends, is not one of those good ideas.

The merit-based pay idea begins with a faulty premise

The idea of merit-based pay for teachers begins with a faulty premise, and don’t miss this.

The premise is that a teacher’s merit can be objectively measured and entirely quantified by how their students perform on standardized tests.

It’s simple and seems logical, but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Here are some of the many problems that merit-based pay models would create in our schools and districts.

Five reasons why merit-based pay for teachers would be toxic

1. Merit-based pay for teachers puts dollar signs over every child’s head.

If my bread and butter is coming from the average of my students’ performance, every child in my room takes on a personal, financial implication.

Brilliant students represent higher pay and security. Struggling students represent a tax and a threat to my livelihood.

Class composition meetings between teachers would become like draft day. Teachers would literally resent, even despise, their underachieving students.

That kid with the learning disability? He’s going to drag down your class average.

That kid with the traumatic home situation and spotty attendance? She’s costing you money.

Why do I have these five students and my teaching neighbour has all the learning superstars? Oh right, it’s because my neighbour is tight with our principal, who makes the final decisions on class composition.

Watch the toxic impacts that follow when students impact their teacher’s bottom line.

2. Merit-based pay for teachers de-incentivizes professional collaboration.

If I’m teaching in a merit-based pay system and discover teaching strategies or resources that help my students learn better, why would I share them with the teacher next door or down the hall?

The more separation I can create between myself and my teaching teammates, the more I’ll look like a superstar and the more I’ll get paid.

Merit-based pay for teachers means survival of the fittest. That may work fine at the used car dealership.

But that’s not the work culture we need in our elementary staff room.

3. Merit-based pay for teachers minimizes the intangible wins of the school life.

If a teacher’s livelihood depends on how their students perform on the next standardized test, you’d better believe that’s going to be the number one priority all year long.

Field trips? Not important.

Spontaneous sledding at a nearby park after a big snowfall? A waste of time.

Independent reading, inquiry learning, and Genius Hour opportunities? Unhelpful distractions.

I’m hyperbolizing a little bit, of course, because teachers are such altruistic human beings that many would do these things with their students anyway — even if it cost them financially.

But the point remains that merit-based pay promotes obsession over the test, the test, the test at the expense of so many experiences that add richness to the school life.

And that’s far from the vision of holistic growth that we want for our children.

4. Teaching to the test is generally low-grade teaching and learning.

Something that educators generally know but the public may miss: teaching to the test favors low-grade instruction and cheap learning experiences.

Here’s an example of what I mean.

There was a time in my teaching career that I gave my upper elementary students weekly spelling and vocabulary quizzes. These quizzes produced reliable, objective data that looked great in my gradebook as I stacked quiz result after quiz result after quiz result.

At some point, however, I came to a concerning realization: if a student had poor literacy skills but a ferocious work ethic, they could literally memorize all 30 words and definitions and ace my quizzes, week after week.

They could game my quizzes. They had learned the quiz format and memorized the content, and that was enough for a 30/30.

Could they use those vocabulary words in proper context in their next written product? No.

Could they spell those same spelling words accurately in three months? No.

My spelling and vocabulary quizzes weren’t really assessing their literacy skills. They were assessing their memorization skills.

A similar effect can happen with standardized tests. I can spend weeks and weeks pushing my students to work through a 2024 version of the test, then a 2023 version, then a 2022 version, and so on, even at the expense of hands-on learning experiences.

Get to know the format. Memorize the content. Crush your performance.

There’s only one problem: a successful performance may not mean deep learning.

5. Schools in underserved areas would struggle even more to attract good teachers.

Underserved areas already have a hard enough time attracting good teachers, but this effect would be amplified by merit-based pay structures.

If my personal income depends on the performance of my students, you’d better know I’m not headed to an inner city school.

I’m not headed for immigrant communities.

I’m not applying in working class neighborhoods.

I’m definitely not looking seriously at a city that is struggling with violence.

If making my mortgage payments and providing for my family depends on the performance of my students, I’m choosing my school and district strategically.

Which communities have the best-funded schools, the best programs, the best technology, the best supports, the most supportive families, the most access to tutors, the most books in the average home?

Look, this effect is already a thing. But as things stand today, many competent, good-hearted teachers still make the choice to teach in underserved areas with the confidence that they’ll be compensated fairly for their contributions.

Take away that financial security, and these schools will lose those teachers, too. Hiring will become even more grim, and student learning will suffer further.

And the cycle will continue.

Final thoughts

In an age of rising national debts and mounting examples of government inefficiency, I applaud initiatives that hold our public servants to account.

No taxpayer likes to see public sector employees paid well for doing nothing.

Quiet quitters shouldn’t be rewarded.

We need results, and our children deserve a quality education.

But K-12 schools are incredibly complex. Learning depends on a host of school and non-school factors, and it shows up in many forms that are hard to quantify.

I’m not saying that standardized tests are worthless. They have their place, and achievement benchmarks are helpful.

But when we pay teachers according to how their students perform on tests, we poison the whole system.

And that’s why merit-based pay for teachers would be a FAIL for student learning.