ARKANSAS
TEACHER PERFORMANCE PAY
“The State Board of Education should authorize the (Education)
Director…to expend department funds for any salary-related bonus or merit
raise-appropriately certified and capped as to percentage amounts-to any
district…” (Murphy Commission, Policy Foundation project, 1998 recommendation)
(February
2012) Performance pay has advanced from Murphy Commission recommendation to
experiment in Arkansas’ largest school district to current policy in three
Arkansas school districts (Cross County, Lincoln, and Helena-West Helena) and
at two charter schools (e-STEM, and Academics Plus).
Little
Rock School District
Little Rock, Arkansas’ largest school
district collaborated with the local Public Education Foundation to create a
pilot performance pay program for teachers: the Achievement Challenge Pilot
Project (ACPP). Under the program, teachers received direct bonuses based on
the average academic growth of students in their class as measured by gains on
the complete battery of a nationally normed standardized test, the Stanford
Achievement Test (SAT), and the number of students in the class. A 2007 paper1 by
Univ. of Arkansas researchers found that “providing teachers with bonuses based
on test score improvement increased student math proficiency by between 3.6 and
4.6 Normal Curve Equivalency ranks in a year.”
A 2008 paper2
by Univ. of Arkansas researchers found an improvement in student achievement in
“multiple subject areas.” The authors
wrote, “In math, students whose teachers were eligible for bonuses outperformed
students in schools whose teachers were not eligible by 3.52 normal curve
equivalent (NCE) points.” The paper also
noted teachers “have mixed feelings about the program,” according to surveys
from more than 300 Little Rock elementary school
teachers. The experiment later ended.3
Teacher
& Student Advancement (TAP)
TAP is an acronym for The System for
Teacher and Student Advancement.4 The program was created by Lowell Milken in
1999 to “attract, develop, motivate and retain the highly effective educators
that all students deserve.” Milken, in
2005, founded the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to
“manage and support” TAP.
The Cross County School District uses
TAP as an “intervention” strategy.5
TAP includes “multiple career paths, on-going applied professional growth,
instructionally focused accountability, and performance based compensation.”
Actions include:
“Master
teachers will provide professional development on the TAP instructional rubric
so that all teachers will understand the evaluation process.”
“PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT: Master and mentor teachers received extensive training and
certification in the TAP evaluation process.”
“EVALUATION:
Teachers will be awarded performance pay based on student performance and
individual teacher evaluations.”
The Lincoln School District’s annual
report6
notes NIET has provided a five-year, $8.9 million grant for both districts.7
Differential
Pay for Performance
The Helena-West Helena
School District is also using performance pay as an intervention strategy. The Delta district has teamed with the Office
of Educational Policy at the Univ. of Arkansas on a Differential Pay for
Performance program.8
Charter
Schools
Teacher pay for
performance is a component of the e-STEM charter schools9 in
Little Rock, which examined Murphy Commission education recommendations prior
to their establishment in 2007. The
schools serve students at the elementary, middle and high school levels.
Teachers and staff at
e-STEM schools (elementary, middle, and high school) received performance pay
totaling $446,724 in the 2009-10 school year. Bonuses are based on student performance, and
provided by grants from private foundations.
Academics Plus Charter
School in Maumelle also uses performance pay.
The charter’s budget (2011-12) includes about
$84,000 slated for performance pay increases for teachers, based upon student
achievement.10
Conclusion
The Murphy Commission, in
1998, recommended performance pay for Arkansas K-12 public school
administrators, and the head of the state Department of Education. Teacher performance pay was also advanced as
a policy option.
Performance pay has been
advanced in a variety of school districts, ranging from Little Rock (24,380),
the state’s largest, to smaller ones like Cross County (596) and Lincoln
(1,326).11 The policy is used in traditional public
schools and charter schools. Private
foundations have been a driving force behind the innovation. Another factor has been the willingness of
some K-12 administrators and school boards to enact performance pay in their
districts.
--Greg Kaza
1
Winters, Marcus A., Gary W. Ritter, Joshua H. Barnett, and Jay P. Greene, “An
Evaluation of Teacher Performance Pay in Arkansas.”
http://www.uark.edu/ua/der/Research/performance_pay_ar.html
2 Ritter,
Gary W. Marc J. Holley, Nathan C. Jensen, Brent E. Riffel,
Marcus A. Winters, Joshua H. Barnett, and Jay P. Greene “Year Two Evaluation of
the Achievement Challenge Pilot Project in the Little Rock Public School
District.” http://uark.edu/ua/der/Research/merit_pay/year_two/Full_Report_with_Appendices.pdf
3
http://www.fortheschools.org/initiatives/teacher-advancement-program/
4 http://tapsystem.org/
5 “School Plan,” Cross
County School District and Cross County Elementary School (2011-12).
www.crosscountyschools.com
6 Lincoln Consolidated
School District Annual Report, September 20, 2010
(http://wolfpride.nwsc.k12.ar.us/)
7 Cross County is also
using phonics as an intervention strategy, and relying on a standardized
national test top measure student performance.
Both are Policy Foundation recommendations dating to the Murphy
Commission.
8 Helena-West Helena
School District, “LEA Application for School Improvement Grant Funds”
arkansased.org/programs/pdf/grants/sig_helena_081711.pdf
10 “Academics Plus trustees set budget for 635
students,” Maumelle Monitor. August 12, 2011
11 Total enrollment data
from 2010 school performance reports, The National Office for Research on
Measurement and Evaluation Systems (NORMES). http://normes.uark.edu/