Once the preliminary fighting is over for today, the state turns back to regularly scheduled business, including tomorrow’s opening session of the November State Board of Education meetings.

As I havebeen doing some work recently on the issue of teacher retention and recruitment, and the supposed teacher crisis, I”m commenting in advance on the attachment to the State Board of Education’s document HSP7 (high student performance, item 7). The attachment is a new study by Charles Clotfelter, et. al. out of Duke University. In brief, “Evaluation of Teacher Recruitment and Retention Initiative” concludes that the state’s $1800 teacher bonus program has had little or no success with respect to retention and recruitment, and no success with student achievement.

Why hasn’t the state’s program worked? The authors suggest:
Bonuses were too small.
Bonuses were not in place long enough (started in Sept.2001, discontinued by legislature for 2004-05).
Teachers and/or principals ignorant of the bonus program or their eligibility
Eligibility confers to schools or to teachers (two types of eligibility) and is confusing [teachers can remain eligible even if school loses eligibility].

Clotfelter et. al. suggest the following lessons for state policy makers (I paraphrase):
1.Targeting (the right personnel) problems may have resulted from design problems.
2. Salary bonus (in general) has potential for motivation, but the fact that some faculty in a school were ineligible might cause morale problems.
3. Requirement that teachers in rural or poor districts meet certification in math, science, and special ed places “too high a bar” in the path of eligibility for teacher bonuses in those geographic areas.

So, the report seems to say:
A. “show me [the] more money” (and don’t leave anybody out)
B. “lead me to it” (targeting problem fixed)
C. “don’t make it difficult or necessary to ‘qualify’ for the extra dough” (certification should not be a bar to bonuses)

While certification is no guarantee of excellence, and I would ordinarily advocate dropping it altogether as a teacher requirement (as the best private schools do), “C” has no meaning outside a market setting. A and B simply pander to the education lobby. Enough said.

For economists, the authors seem extremely reluctant to acknowledge that for pay incentives work they must enact real pay differentials between subject areas (as we do in higher ed), refuse to administer “across the board” bonuses, dump credentialism, and concentrate rewards on the individual teachers who advance student achievement.

In short, we must start treating students and parents like the clients they are, instead of like the conscripts they (unfortunately) also are.