How would Performance Pay work?

The Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, has recently begun the process of adopting "Performance based pay" for teachers in New Zealand schools. In her speech notes for Raising achievement for all in Budget 2012, Parata was quoted as reporting  that "we will collaborate in the development of an appraisal system focusing on driving up quality teaching and quality professional leadership. Performance pay is but one of a basket of options to reward and recognise that" click here for more details.

However, the OECD has examined data from its Pisa tests and report that while many studies have identified the importance of high-quality teaching internationaly, there is no clear link between performace pay for teachers and improved student achievement. Click here to read more

In principle, performance pay for teachers does make sense, but there are limitations Listener. On the plus side, performance pay offers financial rewards to the teachers schools most want to retain because of the skilled pedagogy they bring to students’ learning experiences. On the negative side, identifying a fair system for deciding who is and who isn’t a skilled practitioner is contentious. The media seem to equate performance indicators as NCEA achievement levels read more in the listener. However, what about at primary school levels?  Achievement levels are very reliant on the cohort of the learners. How then, do we decide quantifyably, who is and who is not a successful teacher?


And Why does New Zealand continue to move towards another educational policy that has been shown to be ineffective in other countries? It is pretty easy to see that the real reason is simple. Treasury! The decision is ultimately driven by minimising Government spending.Rreduce the number of teachers, put more children in the classes of those that are left... change the pedagogical climate, compromise already underachieving students and reduce efficient teachers' current practice!

Two things concern me about this new announcement. Firstly the fact that the Minister says "we will be collaborating". I hope she isn't referring to the kind of collaboration that preceded the introduction of the National Standards! Secondly, I hope that the idea of "driving up quality teaching" as part of the introduction of performance pay, doesn't herald a reduction in the collabrative culture embedded in my experience of teaching practice! I am concerned that this push may bring about an increase in extreme competition between teachers and across schools.

Despite pending changes to our performance review processes, school Principals will continue to monitor teacher performance and teaching capabilities as they have always been expected to. The important thing is for us as Educational Professionals is to make sure we remain fully up to date, and keep our teaching colleagues fully informed about how we implement this process. Are we maintaining a transparent system of performance review? and if not, how can we ensure that we are?


I attended the recent Waikato Principal's Association catch up session in May. The afternoon session was led by Richard Clarke and focused on "Attestation, Appraisal and performance managegment". If you'd like to view his slide show presentation click here.

It was a very informative session! It helped me understand the performance review/attestation/ competencey process much better...

But, do I now need to learn how the Ministry of Education expects us to attest to higher or lower performance in order to increase or decrease pay?