Module 3 Case Study
In 2000, the Denver Public Schools began a pilot called ProComp which implemented a pay-forperformance program for teachers (Denver Public Schools Pay for Performance Plan, 1999). In a nutshell, the school district is offering large incentive pay increases to teachers who are willing to take risks, such as working in an impoverished school, and for increasing their students scores on the Colorado standardized tests. Many of the bonuses are then permanently added to the teacher s base salary, so a successful teacher could drive their base pay up year over year (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010). While the ProComp plan does appear to have the makings of success, it does come with a curious limitation: teachers with more than 13 years of experience would not have bonuses incorporated into their base salaries; they would only receive cost of living pay increases (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010). This appears to penalize veteran teachers. As a result, Kim Ursetta, the president of the teachers union, calls the ProComp plan unacceptable even while she maintains that a pay-for-performance plan deserves to be tried (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010). Despite the union s objections and some teachers being so outraged that they staged sick-outs and handed out fliers to parents denouncing the ProComp plan, the pay changes went into effect (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010). What has been the result? In 2006, Dan Goldhaber and Joe Walch of the Center for Education Data and Research undertook a three-year of Denver s ProComp plan. They found that the following resulted from the ProComp plan: y y y There were significant learning gains across grades and subjects, and The benefits of tracking data and evaluating educators spread from ProComp teachers to the entire district, and There was an expectation that the program would cause a negative atmosphere between team members but the opposite actually occurred and role models were bred, and ProComp teachers students had larger than expected gains on the state assessment.
(Merit Pay Revisited - Is Denver's Pay for Performance a Model Plan?, 2011) Skeptics argue that these rewards focus more on classroom instruction than student test achievement and that ProComp is inconsistent with the value-added approach. Goldhaber and Walch point out that, whether this is good or bad is clearly a normative question but that overall, ProComp has had a positive effect. They also suggest that states might want to
consider investing in similar programs, especially for their Race to the Top objectives (Merit Pay Revisited - Is Denver's Pay for Performance a Model Plan?, 2011). Yesenia Robles, of the Denver Post, notes that ProComp has helped propel infrastructure reforms to change recruitment practices and enhance methods of data gathering. She goes on to point out that the difference between non-ProComp and ProComp teachers student growth objectives are comparable to the difference between those of a first and second year teacher (Robles, 2011). Overall, despite certain inequalities and other issues that have had a negative impact on the ProComp plan, the plan appears to be a success. Where real work remains is with successfully communicating an understanding of the plan to the general public, as lead University of Colorado Denver researcher Robert Reichardt points out, this has kept the system from improving [teacher] recruitment as misunderstandings about ProComp have discouraged qualified teachers from applying to the Denver school system. But overall, as researcher Dan Goldhaber says, ProComp has had a definitely positive effect (Robles, 2011).
Bibliography Denver Public Schools Pay for Performance Plan. (1999). Retrieved December 25, 2011, from Denver Public Schools: http://www.dpsk12.org/news/documents/PayForPerformance.html Merit Pay Revisited - Is Denver's Pay for Performance a Model Plan? (2011). The Center for Public Education, 5-10. Kreitner, R., & Kinicki, A. (2010). Organizational Behavior, Kindle Edition. New York: McGrawHill. Robles, Y. (2011, October 10). DPS teacher-pay system likely boosting student achievement, study finds. Denver Post, p. A2.
