Ohio’s SB5 requires that teachers be paid according to a merit system. This requirement should inspire some thoughtful discussions.
SB5 gives local districts a choice of how they will define teacher merit.
The basis for judging merit is a clear understanding of how success is defined.
We have a good definition of what success in basketball means, and so, we have a fair basis upon which to judge the merit of a basketball player. An evaluation of a basketball player revolves around the question: To what degree does this player contribute to the success of the team? There is not a chance that someone who is an awful player could be mistaken for someone who is an excellent player. The definition of what success in basketball means ultimately is the basis for a merit system that determines the pay of professional basketball players.
The system of merit pay used to compensate professional basketball players could serve as a model for a system of merit used to compensate teachers if we could ever figure out what success in teaching should mean. As it is now, success in teaching is defined solely in terms of individual success within a system of schooling. The problem is, the system is wrong, seeking wrong aims, so the definition of success in the system is wrong as well. The merit of a teacher can be judged in a manner similar to how the merit of a professional basketball player is judged, only in the sense that the game of basketball parallels the game of schooling.
- Basketball, like all games, occurs in a small universe, controlled by a finite amount of specific regulations. The “object of the game” is narrowly defined.
- Schooling also occurs in a small universe, also controlled by a finite amount of specific regulation and again, the “object of the game” is narrowly defined.
The problem is, substituting schooling for education is a bad idea and schooling, as presently defined, is miserably failing to produce the effective and thoughtful citizens our nation needs.
SB5 shows a fork in the path, two roads diverging. We are on the wide and easy path of schooling and we deceive ourselves into thinking we have “excellent” schools because, according to a bureaucratic process, we are winners in the game of schooling. But SB5 opens the opportunity for local control to redefine the game. Here are our choices:
- We stay on the path we are now: Public education accelerates its alignment with corporate interests and becomes ever more effective in serving its corporate overlords.
- We take the road less traveled: Public education creates a transformed system, one whose purpose is defined as effective, self-actualized citizens, prepared and happy to advance the common good of our society.
Last summer, the Kettering school leadership studied an interesting new book, Frederick Hess’s, “Education Unbound: The Promise and Practice of Greenfield Schooling.” On the cover of the book is a picture of an open green field. Hess’s theme is that we must transform the system of education and that the first step is to clear out the bramble and debris and create green space for new development. I read the book and made this response: “To Bring Excellence To Public Education We Must First Engineer A Better System.”
SB5 clears out the bramble. The question is, what do we do with the “greenfield” it created. It seems to me, Hess’s wants to open public education to corporate America to use as a big profit opportunity.
My thought is that green space should be an opportunity for an engaged democracy to exert local control. In the book I am researching, “Public Education In Kettering Ohio In 2030,” I imagine that a prosperous community determines to take path #2, and successfully creates a system design that empowers their success.
I keep remembering W. Edwards Deming’s words, “Profound knowledge is required.”
The challenge for Peggy Lehner, my local state senator, recently designated chair of the Senate Education Committee, is to show leadership in bringing profound knowledge into this discussion about school reform. SB5 should energize discussions about the purpose of public education and about how the system of public education should best be designed to best accomplish that purpose. Questions Senator Lehner’s committee should investigate:
- What is the aim of Ohio’s system of public education?
- What are the possible system designs that a local district might implement that could accomplish this aim?
- How should teacher professionalism be defined?
- What is the system that would empower and reward ever more professional teachers?
- What is a merit system that would work to make Ohio’s system of public education most effective
