Details of merit pay

Speaking of performance/merit pay, my friend James Forman has thrown out a challenge on his blog, asking for details.  If anyone wants to reply to me, I'll share it...
 

Can We Get Details on Your Merit  Pay Plan?
<http://extracredit.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/can-we-get-details-on-your-merit-pay-plan/>

July 30th, 2007

http://extracredit.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/can-we-get-details-on-your-merit-pay-plan/ <http://extracredit.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/can-we-get-details-on-your-merit-pay-plan/>
 
 I’ve said <http://extracredit.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/teacher-quality-and-merit-pay/>  that I’m drawn to the  idea of merit pay, but the details seem really hard to get right, as the  Working Group on Teacher Quality has recently argued (pdf <http://www.talentedteachers.org/pubs/successful_performance_pay_july_2007.pdf> ). Maybe so hard that it isn’t  worth it. I’m not sure, and I don’t want to give up on something that seems, in the abstract, to have common sense going for it. But most of what I hear from the gung-ho merit pay crowd avoids the tough questions and instead simply asserts that people who who support merit pay, like Bloomberg <http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Jul25/0,4670,UrbanLeagueBloomberg,00.html>  (and  maybe Obama) are courageous, and those who oppose it are pandering and stuck in liberal orthodoxy. But this seems like an example of an area where the details really  matter <http://www.quickanded.com/2007/02/uniting-differences.html> .
 
So my question for Whitney Tilson <http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/07/must-read-mayor-bloomberg-addresses.html> , Joe Williams <http://www.dfer.org/2007/07/obama_breath_of.php#more> ,  Andy Rotherham <http://www.eduwonk.com/2007/07/dont-go-there-he-went-there.html> , Edspresso <http://www.edspresso.com/2007/07/changing_the_race_without_join.htm>   etc., is . . . if you were a non-pandering reform-oriented superintendent,  what exactly would your merit pay proposal be?  Specifically, here’s 5 questions to start with:
 
1) Would you propose using value-added assessment, and what  would you do if you were in one of the overwhelming majority of districts that  don’t have the data systems to support that?
 
2) Do you endorse what Aspire schools do, and include  school-wide measures of achievement and parent satisfaction surveys? Or would  you base the merit pay solely on test scores tied to an individual teacher’s  classroom?
 
3) How much weight, if any, would you give to the judgment of  principals above and beyond standardized measures? Would there be any appeal  process for teachers who felt they had been judged unfairly?
 
4) What about the areas that aren’t routinely tested? Are  those teachers eligible for merit pay, and if so, who decides and on what  basis?
 
5) Finally, if we accept as we must, that doing this right  will cost more money (not the pay itself, but the investment in the assessment  tools), how much should we be willing to pay?
 
This last one matters a lot since smart,  not-stuck-in-liberal-orthodoxy school leaders like Emily Lawson <http://extracredit.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/teacher-quality-and-merit-pay/> , who are actually  trying to implement merit pay, have argued that good merit pay plans are 1)  costly to implement, and 2) would rank relatively low on her list of priorities for improving teacher quality.