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9486 in the collection
Merit pay for teachers reveals sway of affluence
by Erika Hobbs
At Palm Lake Elementary, two out of three teachers earned a bonus through Orange County Public Schools' merit-pay plan.
At Richmond Heights Elementary, the number was zero.
Palm Lake is a predominantly white school in the affluent Dr. Phillips area.
Richmond Heights is a predominantly black school in a poverty-stricken pocket of Orlando.
The two schools illustrate a marked disparity in the distribution of merit bonuses to 3,911 Orange County teachers and administrators uncovered in an Orlando Sentinel analysis of the program.
The Sentinel's review showed that teachers at predominantly white and affluent schools were twice as likely to get a bonus as teachers from schools that are predominantly black and poor.
It wasn't supposed to work that way.
Florida education officials promised that imbalances along racial or income lines would not happen under the state's beleaguered and now-defunct merit-pay program known as Special Teachers Are Rewarded, or STAR. Officials said the best teachers could win a bonus no matter where they worked or what they taught.
"It certainly doesn't inspire much confidence in the system," said Mark Pudlow, a spokesman with the Florida Education Association, a teachers union.
Among the Sentinel's findings:
At Orange County's 39 predominantly white schools, an average of 27 teachers per school won bonuses. Only two of those schools had a majority of students getting free or reduced-price lunches, an indicator of low-income.
At the 38 predominately black schools, an average of 13 teachers per school won. All of those schools had a majority of students receiving subsidized lunches.
At the 31 schools with a mostly Hispanic population, an average of 20 teachers per school got bonuses. Only three were low-income schools.
State education officials who devised STAR said it was supposed to be equitable because it focused on learning gains, or how much progress a child makes in one year.
Educators usually agree that it's easier for struggling students, who often live in poor neighborhoods, to make gains. Children in affluent communities tend to score well right off the bat, so they have high marks overall. But learning gains often are more modest.
Orange Superintendent Ronald Blocker said the results of the analysis were disconcerting. But he pointed out that the growth was measured largely by using Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores. And across the state, privileged schools tend to do better on FCAT, he said.
"A lot of the low-performing schools are in high-poverty or high-minority populations -- and guess what: It looks like STAR is following the same patterns," Blocker said.
Is new plan better?
Some experts question whether the state's new merit-pay plan -- the Merit Award Program, or MAP -- will favor teachers in wealthier schools this year. That's because it is based not only on learning gains but also on proficiency.
Pudlow, the union spokesman, said he has "little confidence" MAP will be more equitable.
Critics such as Pudlow and Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, who created MAP and led the drive to kill the STAR program, said STAR's fatal flaw is that it captured only a snapshot of whether kids did well on one test on one day.
That's what happened at Richmond Heights, where none of the school's 32 teachers got bonuses, Principal Sheila Windom said. Her snapshot revealed a school in turmoil. Its rating dropped to an F from a C after Windom came in, and she lost half her teachers in the transition.
The lack of recognition through merit bonuses is frustrating, Windom acknowledged. Several of her teachers have master's degrees; one teacher has two.
But they work on a campus that lacks equipment and supplies, and academics sometimes take a back seat to the more pressing needs of children who are so poor they often don't have jackets or eat breakfast.
But teachers said they weren't discouraged. "I didn't come here for the bonus," said Carletta Davis-Wilson, a math and science coach. "I came here to make a difference."
Windom's school, however, was the only F-rated campus without award winners. Dozens of teachers at Evans High, Oak Ridge High and Orange Center Elementary won them.
While the Sentinel's analysis showed a strong link between bonuses and a school's racial and income makeup, it also revealed a few cases where instructors at schools in high-poverty or minority communities fared well.
Andover and Ivey Lane elementaries -- an A and a B school, respectively -- were among the schools with the highest concentration of bonus winners. At Andover, more than half the students are Hispanic, and more than half are from low-income families. Almost all the students at Ivey Lane are black.
Instructors in these schools appeared to have been rewarded based on significant student learning gains, just as STAR supporters promised.
Orange used old plan
STAR was unpopular with most school districts in Florida. But Orange, the fourth-largest district in the state, chose to use it and awarded $10.4 million in state money to the top 35 percent of its teachers. The bonus equaled 5 percent of their salaries, an average of about $2,000 per teacher.
State education officials did not respond to several requests for comment on the Sentinel's analysis. However, in earlier interviews, Pam Stewart, deputy chancellor of educator quality, said "the goal is to reward teachers who are high performing and can get good [results] no matter where children are located."
But that usually wasn't the case in Orange.
In the county's 108 schools where one particular racial or ethnic group is in the majority, the bonuses favored teachers in white, wealthy schools, according to the Sentinel's analysis.
Orange's 61 other schools do not have a racial or ethnic majority, but the findings were similar. When blacks and Hispanics combined made up a majority, teachers in those schools were three times less likely to win bonuses than teachers in schools with larger populations of white students.
"I really believe superstars should be rewarded," Blocker said. "But when there are unique challenges facing a school, that should be taken into consideration," he said.
And under Florida's bonus system, he said, someone is bound to be left out.
Researchers split on results
Researchers who studied STAR as it was being developed were split on what the Sentinel's results reveal.
David Figlio, a University of Florida economics professor who studies education issues, said it's no surprise that the disparity sliced cleanly along racial and economic lines.
According to Figlio, better teachers tend to gravitate to privileged schools because, while they're paid the same, it's easier to work there.
"One of the major challenges facing American schools today is how to get the best teachers with more needy students," he said.
However, Eric Hanushek, a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, said he was surprised by Orange's results. The Koret panel analyzed Florida's education system last year.
Hanushek's own research shows that good teachers are mixed in at all kinds of schools, he said, so he can't account for the disparity or to what degree the state's formula, Orange's hiring practice or other issues influence the result.
Blocker said it was the program, not Orange's hiring, that swayed results. "All our teachers are good teachers," he said.
Katy Moore of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Erika Hobbs can be reached at ehobbs@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6226.
— Erika Hobbs
Orlando Sentinel
2007-09-09
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