policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
Answering the big questions
CR: The idea of performance-based pay
for teachers is always popping up in the
media. In your opinion, what are the best
arguments for and against it?
An expert responds to key
education issues in the media.
Debra Hayes interviewed by Wade Zaglas
T
eacher performance, student
achievement and performance-
based pay – these three issues are
never far from the headlines. But are the
debates founded on evidence or merely
the thought bubbles of politicians and
populist commentators?
We spoke to Professor Debra Hayes from
the University of Sydney about these issues
and more. She’s concerned that teachers
are no longer considered the trusted
professionals they once were, and is also
sceptical about plans to increase ATAR-
entry scores for teaching – further stripping
universities of their prerogative to make
judgements about who will and won’t make
good teachers.
Hayes also highlights one of the most
important issues affecting Australian
students’ international results: inequity.
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DH: It does pop up and it is an important
issue. Everyone’s interested in supporting
young people’s learning and giving
them the best opportunities to learn.
And when we think about how to do
that, we obviously think of teachers
as being a critical lever in enhancing
young people’s ability to learn and to
do well.
But teaching is a very distinct profession,
and it’s one we need to understand
very carefully in order to assess whether
performance pay is a good idea or not.
If you look at a profession where
performance pay exists – a common one
might be in rugby league – it’s not unusual
for league players to be paid at different
levels according to their performance, but
there’s a critical difference between playing
league and teaching, and that is you have a
level playing field in rugby league, and that’s
not the case in teaching.
Even teachers working in the same
school, with the same kinds of conditions,
might have very different challenges in the
classroom depending on who the young
people are in their classes.
So, teachers can have up to 30 very
different little minds that they’re required to
support and to teach. It’s not a level playing
field for teachers, and so performance pay
is perhaps not the best thing we should be
considering.
The other thing is, who do we give credit
to for students doing well or badly?
For example, although we might say the
students in one teacher’s class are doing
well, is that because they were taught well
last year? Is that because of the resources
available? Is that because these kids have
access to extracurricular activities and other
outside experiences?
We need to be very careful about
this idea of performance pay, because
it can have unintended negative
consequences.
One of the things that makes schools
great is that teachers work together. It’s that
collectivity, that sense of a shared purpose
in supporting everyone’s learning. Teachers
have a very strong sense of collective
responsibility: “These are our kids, our
school, our community.”
A performance pay process is very much
focused on individual performance, and
I think it could disrupt that really valuable
quality of teaching, that it’s a collective and
a collegial process.
Sure we could do it, but do we want to
do it? Do we really want to place additional
pressures and constraints on teachers?
Performance suggests a range of
repertoires. What we need to remember is
that over the last few years we’ve clamped
down on a teacher’s ability to be creative
and to exercise professional judgement.