Monday, March 21, 2011

As Someone Who's Facing A Pay Cut Next Year...

...this column in Slate certainly caught my attention:
Raises Don't Make Employees Work Harder
But pay cuts make them slack off
.

2 comments:

Ellen K said...

Here's my take on it. I am not facing a pay cut, yet. But if it means that we keep more competent teachers and lower student teacher ratios in the classrooms, I would take a pay cut. But I honestly wonder how equitable those pay cuts would be. Somehow I see folks like me who are "just" teachers taking cuts while those that teach special subjects or coach will not. Sorry if that sounds bitter, but in my experience most administrators come straight from the coaching ranks and they make budget decisions accordingly.

mmazenko said...

There is a vast amount of research these days from cognitive scientists at UChicago, Carnegie Mellon, and others that reveals much about "what motivates us." And the general conclusion is that increased reward leads to improved performance for only base level, non-cognitive skills. For skills that require critical thinking, innovation, extrapolation, increased reward actually leads to worse results. Thus, many social and business and education critics are applying incorrect logic to reform these days. That's a problem.