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Jameson Brewer, P.S. Myers, & Michael Zhang, University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne  \nAbstract  \nEducational reforms have become the new policy mainstay in educational discourse and policy. Without doubt, “fixing” teachers and increasing student test scores have both been a large component of much of the reform rhetoric. Moreover, calls for implementing merit pay schemes have uniquely combined reformer’s efforts to “fix” teachers while increasing test scores as teacher pay is linked directly to student academic achievement. This article traces the historical use of merit pay schemes, situates the current push formerit pay within the neoliberal education reform movement, while highlighting the overt and covert implications of injecting competition into teacher salaries. In addition to creating an environment that lends itself to narrowed pedagogical approaches and teaching to tests (and even cheating on them), this article suggests that merit pay schemes that require teachers to compete with one another may likely undermine positive collaboration.  \nKeywords: merit pay, collaboration, neoliberalism  \nIntroduction, Purpose, and Questions  \nMoney can be a powerful motivation. The prospect of making more money often encourages individuals and corporations to work harder, smarter, and more efficiently. In this way, monetary incentives can serve as the proverbial carrot to elicit a desired reaction out of oneself or others. Similarly, the threat of losing money can also be a powerful incentive. In the role of the proverbial stick, the threat of losing money often increases self-reflection and heightens intentionality. In this way, people typically respond to money out of self-interests. The economist Adam Smith (1776/1952) noted that “[i]t is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect out dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest”(p. 7) .  \nIn the context of schooling, teacher salaries have traditionally been linked to a teacher’s level of postsecondary education and duration of service. However, in the present age of marketbased educational reforms, merit pay schemes are becoming an oft cited silver bullet to fixing the“horrid state of public education” that was first exclaimed in A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) . As a continued response to the perceived ill state of our schools, reformers have continued to offer reforms that purportedly provide the solu-  \n46 Brewer, Myers, & Zhang—Merit Pay Schemes  \ntions our schools so desperately need. Moreover, many reformers and educators have simply accepted the assertion that our schools are failing and often try to implement reforms before carrying out any systematic investigations on their effectiveness and without considering their many professional and personal implications. This failure to investigate reforms that rest on dubious grounds has and continues to leave education susceptible to neoliberal policies and policymaking. By neoliberal, we mean, as Ong (2007) offers,“big ‘N,’”with neoliberal as a state-centric, economic strategy and also “small ‘n’” neoliberalism, where “optimal gains and profit” are sought through strategies of self-governance. Individuals and groups (learn to) attune themselves to the market (p. 4) and market-based path dependence. Neoliberalism is the universalization of capitalistic logic, where “its social relations, its laws of motion, its contradictions—the logic ofcommodification, accumulation and profit maximization penetrating every aspect of our lives”(Wood 1997, p. 551) . Neoliberalism’s goal of commodification is, as we argue below, the disposition and ideology that reinforces beliefs that a teacher’s individual lesson plans, content knowledge, etc., are ultimately seen as individualistic commoditized goods that are to be hoarded within neo","cbCair7uQUlCahkN","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCair7uQUlCahkN","pdf",775508,"English","# Abstract\n# Introduction, Purpose, and Questions\n# The History of Merit Pay","[{\"question\":\"What is the central argument about merit pay schemes and teacher collaboration?\",\"answer\":\"The article argues that merit pay schemes requiring teachers to compete may undermine positive collaboration and shared professional dispositions.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article connect merit pay with neoliberal education reform?\",\"answer\":\"It situates merit pay within the neoliberal education reform movement by describing how competition and pay tied to student achievement reflect neoliberal ideas of commodification and self-governance.\"},{\"question\":\"What risks does the article associate with merit pay implementation in schools?\",\"answer\":\"It highlights potential narrowed pedagogical approaches, teaching to tests, and even cheating, alongside the broader concern that teachers may hoard information and resources rather than work together.\"}]","Islands unto Themselves - How Merit Pay Schemes may Undermine Positive Teacher Collaboration | PDF",1792089260,25]