Does merit pay work?

There’s no current evidence, Smet says, as debate on issue rages here

By Jennifer Eisenbart

Staff writer

More than a week since the June 18 Burlington Area School District Curriculum Committee meeting, opinions seem to remain heavily divided on whether School Board member Philip Ketterhagen had a point when he suggested teachers take a zero percent pay increase and work for merit pay.

At least, most of the people on the two sides seem divided. For incoming BASD Superintendent Peter Smet, it’s more of a meeting in the middle ground for him.

“It’s not a short answer,” Smet said Tuesday about merit pay. “It’s a very complex issue.”

For instance, Smet said, how do you define merit? How do you measure progress and after all that, how will teachers be paid?

Smet stressed that while it’s an idea that will likely have some foothold in the future, not everyone in the state is looking at it.

“Not everyone’s going in that direction,” Smet said. “There is a lot of research around that shows school districts that have merit pay … it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do.

“It doesn’t improve student achievement.”

Most school districts, Smet said, haven’t developed their compensation plans yet in the aftermath of Act 10. Since teachers’ unions can now only bargain for wages, figuring out how to pay teachers is a slow process.

“They’re going through that cautiously because the state is involved,” Smet said. “The state of Wisconsin is working on its teacher effective standards and parameters.

“When that comes out, it will drive a lot of what school districts can do and what they have to do.”

Meanwhile, several people chose to fight a war of words over the vitriol spilled at the meeting. In a letter to the editor, former School Board member Taylor Wishau called for Ketterhagen’s resignation.

“Mr. Ketterhagen is an embarrassment to the office he holds and to the people of this community,” Wishau wrote. “While he ran on representing our district’s interests and no one else’s, he had disappointed us all by lowering himself to launching inappropriate attacks on district culture.

“It just seems like he can’t choose a side,” Wishau added. He then asked for Ketterhagen to apologize to everyone at the meeting and resign.

Former Assistant Superintendent Patricia Hoffman wrote in another letter that Ketterhagen’s stance during the campaign of respecting teachers and administrators appears to have disappeared.

“Mr. Ketterhagen owes it to each one of us to learn and listen before he speaks,” Hoffman said.

Beth Reetz, a parent in the district, pointed out that in a merit pay system, it could be impossible to judge.

“Is the teacher who takes a hardworking ‘D’ student and makes him a ‘C’ student somehow less valuable (or should be paid less) than the teacher who takes a student from a ‘B’ to an ‘A’?” she asked.

She then pleaded for Ketterhagen to listen to the administrators and others who have experience.

“You’ve embarrassed our community with your ridiculous rant comparing teachers to animals and your hard working peers on the School Board deserve better!” she wrote.

For his part, Ketterhagen seemed to view the whole situation as a misunderstanding, at least according to his blog at http://www.philipketterhagen4schoolboard.net.

“On monday 6-18-2012 I used a metaphor which has been used literally by some people indicating I wish to beat the teachers over the head with a two by four,” he wrote.
“metaphor:  noun – a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally (sic) applicable in order to suggest resemblance.”

“I stated that being an old farmer that sometimes ‘you need to take a two by four to the bull to get its attention.’ This is a metaphor used by rural people and agriculturally mind people meaning you need to do something to get the attention of the other party in the conversation. Any farm-raised person knows you never use a two by four on a bull unless you want to be injured seriously by that bull. A two by four is a spit in the wind to the bull. He will chase you. However, you got its attention.”

“Sorry I must stop using metaphors of rural nature. They may be missunderstood (sic). ‘Spit into the wind’ means do not say or do something which will come right back in your face.

“I will not use metaphors in the future as it seems they are totally missunderstood (sic).”

Ketterhagen did not immediately respond to an email seeking additional comment prior to deadline for this story.