English: Michael Gove outside the Palace of Westminster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In an article on the BBC website Michael Gove is pushing for teacher’s pay to be linked to performance.
The report is sketchy on details, but high on soundbites from the Education Minister, somewhat in keeping with most of his ‘announcements’
“Reform of the current pay system for teachers is fundamental to driving up teacher quality,” said Mr Gove, whilst adding that the current system is “rigid, complex and difficult to navigate”.
Performance is never easy to compare, within schools let alone across schools.
What criteria do we establish to measure performance? I remember a year at a school many years ago where our esteemed Head of Department established a huge pay rise and AST status for getting 90% A-C’s with his group, I had a ‘must do better’ discussion with the Head, for my 85% D grades.
The difference, the HoD had the top set underachieving by an average of 1 1/2 grades, my bottom set amalgam of SEN, behavioural problems and general ‘unteachables’ overachieve by 2 grades.
The following year, the HOD must get the top set, he gets results states the Headteacher!
How can you measure across schools, which is a better performance, getting A’s and A* in a Grammar school, or getting C’s in a secondary modern, or getting those SEN pupils a D, the best grade they could achieve on the exam they were entered for?
Teaching is a hard job to do, like all jobs, no one goes in to do a bad job, but what creates value in a school?
How do we rate MP’s performance. One way is to look at their voting record. Mr Gove only misses 28% of votes, a good record compared to most. But should a high ranking Government Minister be more in the chamber than in his Department?
Performance is not always easy to measure empirically.
Related articles
- Teachers’ pay tied to performance (bbc.co.uk)
- Why is Whirlwind Gove acting so fast? (schoolsimprovement.net)
- Autumn Statement: performance-related pay for teachers (telegraph.co.uk)
- Gove urged to rethink ‘unrealistic’ EBaccs plan (independent.co.uk)
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/sep/08/mp-attendance-lords
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