The Impact of Teachers' Compensation Contracts on Their Performance or Educational Outcomes - Literature review Example

Title: The impact of teachers' compensation contracts on their performance or educational outcomes By: Institution: Course: Instructor: Date The impact of teachers' compensation contracts on their performance or educational outcomes The teaching fraternity completely experience conditions similar to the rest of the working categories of people and therefore is susceptible to the corresponding access to the provision of the incentives and other remunerations to bolster their morale for their optimum working. The educational sector is considered to experience less competition as compared to other sectors of the economy notably the public schools. The setting of the standards wholly lies by themselves as their main goal imparting essentials skills to necessary to ensure optimum productivity of the populace (Eric and Steven 2006, pg178). The goal of the basic education is to eliminate illiteracy. Hence it is worth noting that the bottom line of the education is earning. However equitable and timely rewards of the teacher are not immediately possible, but after many years after the student even if that could be dependable measuring table. The vital compensation structures facilitate equitable rewarding modes for the teachers as inherent in the empirical economical findings outlined herein. Notably, certain critical economic theories support the concept of the provision of incentives to the teachers to improve their output and thus improve the quality of their production (Edward 2003, pg 169). Essentially, the selected theories note that compensation based on the output models is successively applied when the teaching output is vividly measured as reading from the corresponding pay (Edward 2003, pg 179). Theory of compensation The rules on theory of compensation roots from relation of the funding of input versus the payment outcome and this faces criticism that it is not result oriented. Critics argue that execution of this policy act perpetuates other jointed and massive challenges encountered in the education sector, and thus the opposition of the teachers’ organization is basically out of this understanding. The theory; in application to the teaching occupation context, compensation in terms of the inputs reads that it is payment on knowledge, skills additionally the time worked for, but reward on output refer to some measurable performance of the students whom the they teach (Eric and Steven 2006, pg99). If viable, however, the rewards on output terms have two major merits: incentives and sorting also referred to as selection. The argument regarding incentives is comparatively and straightforwardly understandable. Furthermore, if the assessors concur on the applicable metric of performance, then providing incentives to the teacher on respective models of the metrics place the teachers rewards with their students and largely of the entire society as a whole. Various reasons support inclusions of the incentives to the teacher as it is not majorly backed on the selfish side of the teacher interests or welfare. Some part of the argument is that if rewards are contingent specifically on the student results and performance, then payment on proportionate performance reveals equivalent signals to the categorical teacher about what is acceptable and valued and that which is not. Other teachers (idiosyncratic) may have differing views on the performance of the students and thus further certain goals as opposed to the conventional modes, but tying of the compensation pushes the teachers to work and insist on performing their work in the direction expected by the society. But, there is always remarkable conflict between the teacher’s interests or preferences and those from his or her students (Eric and Steven 2006, pg58). Empirical literature Several experiments have been used to evaluate the impact of performance pay for teachers and improving learning outcomes. However, it is worth noting that the findings are to some extent mixed. In a study done by Duflo, Hanna et al. (2010, pg 45, shows that financial incentives for teachers in Rural India resulted to a strong reduction of teacher absenteeism and student’s performance with a standard deviation of 0.17. they used single-teacher schools run by an NGO as the units of observation with a sample size of 120 teachers. The function of the attendance was teacher salary. The salary ranged from 50% to 130% of the pay in the fixed wage control group. A field experiment conducted in the New York City failed to demonstrate a strong correlation between teacher incentives and improvement in performance. In 2007, NYC launched a pilot study to 400 low performing schools to determine if financial incentives could make the students improve on performance. The study failed to realize any effect of financial incentives on teacher or student behavior. A study conducted by Muralidharan and Sundararaman (2009, pg 71), showed a positive relationship between teacher financial incentives and student outcomes. The scores were higher (0.28) in the treatment group. They also found a positive spillover effects to other subjects other than the test subject of the official student assessment. The study by the National Education Longitudinal Study in the year 1988 noted that earnings traceable from a teacher took close to twelve years in that case; actual compensation formats from Sweden and the USA were examinable (National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88). The countries critical features included comparatively low pay, poor concern on tying compensation to the respective output rate and pattern compensation compression, and this extended all across the variant fields and consequently by the teacher performance (National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88). Typically, low pay inhibits the attraction of the quality teaching staffs to the schools or even furthers the compression of the results which consequently may lead to the change of the change of profession by the teachers (National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88). Key reasons for the amplification of the teachers’ pay and attach it to performance are referable from comprehension that such policies subsequently propagate the increase in the school productivity. Eventually, the student and the teacher or tutor preference, perhaps, deviates from optimum level, chiefly due to the incapacity of the price working state and respective school additions or contributions appropriately. This finally distorts the student, teacher and the parent expectations and decisions (National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88). Jonah (2004, pg174) uses a random-effects meta-analysis approach to determine the impact of individual teachers on student achievement. This provided a more accurate demonstration of the within-school variation in teacher quality. The results indicate large variations in quality among teachers within schools. A 1 SD increases in teacher quality results to an increase of test scores by almost 0.1 SD in reading and Mathematics. He concluded that it takes more than a teacher to realize quality in students’ performance or rather other factors such as the syllabus, education system, school and subject are taken into consideration. Output-based pay According to Andrew (2012, pg71), if pay is increased, the size of the applicant pool is definitely enlarged. However, he argues that the output-based strategy will deliver results only when those who are likely to be the best teachers can be identified during the hiring process. Unfortunately, according to Andrew, there is no strong suggestion that teacher’s characteristics are the best predictors of the ability to affect student performance. This shows that turnover is a vital part of selection process. Proxies are hence applied in determination for the criteria for rewards of the teachers, as opposed to others, who believe that peak results should offer basis for incentives as they are achievement of the students’ goals (Andrew 2012, pg124). In trying to demonstrate this point, Andrew takes into consideration the graph below: Performance based pay pay Fixed wage Student achievement score (Andrew 2012,pg41). Andrew (2012, pg98) argues that distortions that arise in the incentive context are of relevance when taking consideration of sorting as the main mechanism of interest. Performance pay based on test scores results to a distortion at the point when incentives are included because teachers becomes motivated to raise test scores, but not to raise subsequent earnings. Andrew shows that there is limited evidence that suggest some positive effects of output-based pay. The incentives and the sorting channels are the main baseline through which the pay-performance can work through. Nevertheless, it is basically inefficient to tie compensation to the wrong metric. Therefore it remains pay-performance remains a argumentative topic. Conclusion Performance pay for teachers is mostly suggested as a way of improving education outcomes in school. However, the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence towards its effectiveness are ambiguous and mixed respectively. Some studies have showed a positive correlation between teacher pay incentives and students performance while others have showed no correlation at all. On the other hands, some theories argue for the concept while others argue against the concept (Derek 2011, p11). The input-based pay is viably applied usually if the eminent threat or risk is notable, markedly, if the output is not easily identifiable and quantifiable. The summary of the discussions entailed in the precedent sections indicates a mixture of cogent support and rejection for the creation of pay on performance policies for the teachers. While in other cases it, promoted substantial elevation in the education standards for the students and in the hypothesis it turned out to be rejected (Derek 2011, p121). The adoption of the policies applied in the social segment intimates that reward of the teacher in terms of the good results informs a sense of morale boosting amongst the community of teachers and bolsters the improvement of the results in the subsequent years (Derek 2011, p1). However, the eventual substantiation of whether output based compensation is recommendable for assumption is disputable as it is not confirmable within the timing as it contributes to the eventual output fluctuation (Derek 2011, p89). The hypothesis designed and empirical evaluation of the variant data assessed in this context avails differing avenues for the paths to be taken for eventual addressing of the issue. The baseline is proper planning in the education sector. References Andrew, L. (2012). Teacher pay and teacher aptitude', Economics of Education Review 31 pp.41{53. Duflo, E., R. Hanna and S. P. Ryany (2010). Incentives Work: Getting Teachers to Come to School. MIT(Department of Economics and J-PAL) and the Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, Mass. Derek, N. (2011). The design of performance pay in education. Handbook of the Eco- nomics of Education. Edward, L. (2003), Teacher incentives', Swedish Economic Policy Review 10 pp.179{ 214. Eric, H. and Steven, R. (2006), `Teacher Quality', Handbook of the Economics ofEducation. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1574069206020186# Jonah E. Rocko_ (2004). The Impact of Individual Teachers on Student Achievement: Evidence from Panel Data. The American Economic Review 94(2) pp.247{252http://www.jstor.org/stable/3592891 Muralidharan, K. and V. Sundararaman (2009). Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India (NBER Working Paper 15323). National Bureau for Economic Research, Washington DC. U.S. Dept. of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. National Education Longitudinal Study, 1988: First Follow-Up (1990). U.S. Dept. of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement [producer], 1992. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium Political and Social Research [distributor], 1999-08-18. doi:10.3886/ICPSR09859.v1 Read More