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We negate the resolution, that merit pay based on student achievement should be a significantcomponent of K-12 teacher compensation in United States public schools.

To clarify we define:

Achievement as the Ability to demonstrate accomplishment of some outcome for which

learning experiences were designed.

Significant as fairly large

The goals of US public schools can be reasonably inferred to be that teachers should helpstudents in their education as a whole and encourage civic duty. We should thus demonstrate

whether or not merit pay based on student achievement could help these goals.

The thesis of the negative case is that merit pay based on student achievement createsundesirable consequences that would undermine the goals of US public schools.

We offer [three/four] points:

First, merit pay creates economic inefficiencies and free riding. Second, gains in performancemay not be the result of teachers or even better students. Third, merit pay systems encourage

teachers and adminstrators to push out stuents. [Fourth, the merit pay system is arbitrary forelementary grades.

Our first contention is that bonuses based on student achievement dont work, and that school-

wide benefits creates free-riding inefficiencies.

Marigee Bacolod, from the National Bureau of Economic Research, writes in March 2009:

Despite the increase, we find little measurable improvement instandard metrics ofachievement, such as examperformance, for those schools that received the award compared to those schools that did not receive the award. This is perhaps not surprising, as Project STAR, which increased

resources by about 50%, yielded improvements in exam performance of less than a quarter of a standard deviation (Schanzenbach 2006). Moreover, because the resources fromCalifornias program are more a kin to a random shock than a guaranteed income stream, schools may not have been able to incorporate them into projects that determine educationalachievement. However, we also find no increase in capital expenditures, such as computers or internet connections, which should be more responsive to a one-time shock.

It is also possible that the instability in the funding of the program weakened its incentives and failed to act as a strong signal of reward for tea cher and school administrator

effort.Because the awards ended up being distributed mostly as bonuses to teachers(and possibly support staff

as well)in an effective school regardless of their individual contribution, the group-basedincentivesin the GPAPcan also have the free rider problem. The free rider problem could give rise

to teachers no longer exerting as much effort after award receipt, in the period when we evaluate the schools.

Our estimates show that accountability on the cheaphad no significant impact across schools thatwon awards versus those that didnt. On the other hand, we cannot assess if the program would have a significant impact if implemented inconjunction with other reforms, such as reduced class sizes or raising teacher salaries.32 This also leaves the question of whether the competition for the awards itself raised student

achievement across all schools in California. However, a comparison of 1996-2000 4th and 8th grade Math NAEP

scores shows California declined or performed the same as the rest of the country during thisperiod.

If an entire school is rewarded on student performance, than teachers who didnt help get

compensated when they dont deserve it, creating a free-riding problem that encourages notexerting effort to help students.

Our second contention is that gains in performance may not correlate with student improvement

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or better teacher instruction.

Thomas Kane, from the National Bureau of Economic Research, writes in March 2001:

The estimation technique we use to decompose the variance in school-level test scores a lso yielded a number of substantive implications. First, one must be cautious in using gain scoresin an accountability framework, whether one is evaluating schools or teachers. There is much less signal variation and relatively more variation due to non-persistent factors in gain scores

than in test score levels.Moreover, the gain any teacher is likely to achieve with his or her students seemsto depend upon the quality of instruction provided in the previous year. Large(or small)gains oneyear tend to be followed by small(or large)gains in the next year. Also, the schools that achieve

impressive gains in one grade may not achieve impressive gains in other grades.In other words, one shouldnot evaluate a school based upon the gains in any particular grade level.Although gain scores are often touted as better indicators

of value-added by a school, their usefulness will be quite limitedwithout the filtering technique we propose.

He continues:

Second, we found little evidence that schools with substantial improvements in test performanceover time improved on any measures of student engagement. Although homework and TV watching were strongly related to

math test score gains in 5th grade in the base year (1994),

there was no evidence that the schools with the greatestimprovements in performanceafter 1994exhibited improvement on anyof theseother dimensions. Such

results would be consistent with the hypothesis that schools began tailoring their curriculatoimprove performance on the tests, withoutgeneratingsimilar improvements on other measures.

If student performance bears little relation to a current teachers efficacy or even real educational

improvement, then we should not give out merit pay simply because merit has not been earnedeven when it appears to have been.

Our third and final contention is that teachers will game the merit pay system by forcing students

to drop out.David Figlio, and Lawrence Getzler, ofthe National Bureau of Economic Research write inOctober 2002.

Schools may even be less inclined to discourage poorer students from dropping out. For example,a Virginia school district superintendent saidthat the states accountability exam system actually encourages higher dropout rates It is

actually to the schools advantage to drop slow learners and borderline students from theschool, because they are usually poor test-takers. (Borja, 1999) In part because of the newness of school accountability systems, we knowof few attempts to seriously quantify school responses to these incentives.1

An unnerving consequence, school administrators and teachers would be encouraged to convincethe poorest performing students to drop out, raising overall student scores and increasing merit

pay for teachers. Any program that would encourage such a practice would be directlyundermining the goals of US public schools.

[Finally, merit based on student performance in grades such as kindergarten are limited moreso

by student capability than in high school. The age of the student is influential on his mental andphysical capabilities at such a young age, and thus teachers should not be disenfranchised by a

system that is arbitrary.] And so, you negate.