Performance - Based Bonus : Measuring Schools


Recently, the Department of Education (DepEd) in the Philippines issued Order No. 12 s. 2013. This is a memorandum that provides the guidelines on how the performance based bonus of DepEd employees are to be determined:



For teachers, it is important to note that a teacher's bonus depends on the ranking of both school and district to which a teacher belongs. A school is gauged according to three indicators:


  • Mean Percentage Score (MPS) in the National Achievement Test and its percent increase from the previous year (40 percent of a school evaluation). Further details are laid out below for an elementary school:


  • Percentage of students who remain in school. Each percent in dropout amounts to 3 points lost (This is 30 percent of a school evaluation). Having a 10 percent dropout rate can result in no points under this category for the school.



  • The last category involves how a school spends its Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE). This is the remaining 30 percent of a school's evaluation. What seems to be important here is the timeliness of liquidation as well as reporting.



There is likewise a point system at the division level. This also takes into various indicators such as enrollment:


After the above evaluations of each school and division, these units are then ranked. The school evaluation is important for this year since this determines the bonus a teacher could possible receive:

I need to review my English vocabulary to figure out how the words "exceptional", "outstanding", "excellent", "superb", "brilliant", and "great" really differ from each other. This is quite amusing. It is serious, however, because this translates to real pesos a public school teacher in the Philippines needs given their low salaries. The bonus an effective teacher can receive is therefore limited by the performance of the school or district to which that teacher belongs. It is therefore not surprising that the Alliance of Concerned Teachers was against this scheme:







Comments

  1. from the poster, it seems that the reason they dont like it is about the SIZE of the bonus. not the idea of productivity enhancement itself.


    also, there are reasons why teams are rewarded, vs individuals. i think the mgt/econ lit is shifted towards team incentives.

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  2. This is what ACT said in February 14:

    "Ibalik ang P10,000 na Productivity Enhancement Incentive (PEI) , na tatlong taon na nating tinatanggap wala nang mahabang usapan pa. Ibasura ang PBB, na sa kaunting halaga lamang ay pag-aawayin pa tayo at para bang duamadaan tayo sa butas ng karayom. Kasalanan ba ng mga guro kung unliquidated ang MOOE, mababang NAT at mataas ang drop-out rate ng paaralan?"

    ACT is questioning the use of unliquidated MOOE, low NAT scores, and high dropout rates as indicators for determining the bonus of teachers. In addition, ACT is suggesting that this scheme simply puts teachers against teachers, schools against schools. In my opinion, merit-based bonuses are not really appropriate when the salaries are not enough to support a family.

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  3. If I may add, the new guidelines seem to guarantee that every teacher will get a 5,000 peso bonus. Add to this the 5,000 peso PEI that the teachers were supposedly given at the end of 2012, teachers are thus getting the 10,000 that they have been receiving during the past years. Yet, ACT is not happy with this new guidelines. That shows you that the opposition to this PBB goes beyond the amount, but are in fact founded on principles.

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  4. but this 10k, is a one time thing right? moving forward, it wont be.


    l

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  5. " merit-based bonuses are not really appropriate when the salaries are not enough to support a family."


    i'm curious -- why not? lets assume it puts teachers against teachers (it doesnt have too, lets assume it for discussions sake), who cares? if it allows for better outcomes for students, more money for teachers -- for the effective schools -- why shouldnt we reward them.


    is "jealousy" enough of a reason to prevent efficiency?

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  6. The school is not a factory. And education is not a contest. Teachers need to collaborate not compete. Cooperation is required between subjects and across grade levels. There is also research out there that shows that this does not help improve learning outcomes.

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  7. I have no idea - DepEd changes almost everything too often.

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  8. "Teachers need to collaborate not compete. "


    this is PRECISELY the reason why the incentive is SCHOOL/TEAM-based, not on individual teachers.

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  9. It still does not work at that level. The cooperation occurs across schools. In addition, schools whose students need more are not going to attract teachers. The indicators used are not within the control of a teacher, or even a school. Dropout rates correlate with poverty, child labor, and low educational attainment of the student's mother. I am not sure how much a say a teacher has in spending and reporting MOOE's. These measures are highly inappropriate to gauge a teacher's effectiveness. These are not easy measures to make - Bill Gates is spending millions of dollars to find out how this could be done. Finland simply does not do it and Finland has one of the best educational systems in the world.

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  10. here's a lit review that speaks highly of group incentives:

    http://www.osba.org/~/media/Files/Resources/Employee%20Management/Teacher%20Performance%20Incentives.pdf



    the newer literature, more careful regarding causality, tend to lean towards individual teacher incentives. but i suggest reading these papers carefully -- their universal application is not guaranteed.

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  11. http://philbasiceducation.blogspot.com/2013/01/does-teaching-really-influence-learning.html describes one of the most recent studies on this.

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  12. And you would get the opinion from teachers in this other post, http://philbasiceducation.blogspot.com/2012/09/teachers-pay-and-students-performance.html

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  13. cooperation is needed at all levels, but is most powerful within schools -- so utilize incentives to use with-school cooperation.

    also,
    1) the lit also says that dropout rates are affected by teacher quality. no doubt.
    2) the incentives are for % gain, NOT absolute values. you may make the other argument -- disadvantaged schools are likely to suceed more

    finally -- the school determines how the money is spent and reported. this includes the teachers.

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  14. I thought you said before in another message thread that dropout rates in the Philippines are primarily caused by medium of instruction. So, now dropout rates are affected by teacher quality? Are you in the Philippines? Have you met school dropouts in the Philippines? I have and I grew up with them. And my observation agrees with what literature says: socioeconomic factors are behind school dropout. The biggest factors are poverty and child labor. Teachers have no control over these factors. Using this as an indicator to measure how much bonus a teacher receives is highly inappropriate.


    Please do not misinform readers of this blog. The memorandum is up there. The indicators are not for %gain. In fact, % gain is only a small fraction of the measure. There are even examples of how it is calculated, the current mean percentage scores in the exam, as well as dropout rates are part of the calculation of the score. The score in these exams is likewise inappropriate to use in deciding how much a teacher gets since in the Philippine setting, socioeconomic factors also greatly affect learning outcomes.


    Please do not make up things. Teachers are already severely underpaid and overworked in the Philippines. To do so, brings the disrespect for teachers and the teaching profession to a very disgusting level.

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  15. nope. it says that socioeconomic factors are HALF, and that the other half might be due to language, as it looked at differential dropout rates accross language groups.


    this does NOT preclude other factors from affecting drop out rates.


    when have i made things up? the point is that "poverty" is not a policy lever. of course we want to reduce poverty -- and NOT just for educational purposes.


    but other things affect retention rates too. these other things ARE within the control of teachers/educators and govt..


    does that makes sense?

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  16. great! we agree that raising teacher quality MATTERS. the only (big) question is, HOW?

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  17. Please do not misinform readers of this blog. The memorandum is up there. The indicators are not for %gain. In fact, % gain is only a small fraction of the measure.

    You are making things up when you said, "the incentives are for % gain, NOT absolute values. you may make the other argument -- disadvantaged schools are likely to suceed more."

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  18. Again, you should really read that UNESCO paper, because you are completely misunderstanding it. The half is with regard to dropout rate differences between language groups. The differences in dropout rates between language groups are almost insignificant (except in conflict areas, where the reasons behind dropout rates are quite obvious). Read up more on poverty and learning outcomes (there is plenty of research on this topic out there) so that you would appreciate how idiotic using these indicators are for determining bonuses for teachers.

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  19. nope. the gain in points if a function of previous scores. the lower your previous scores, the easier it is get gains.

    once a certain target is reached, no further gains are needed. this also makes sense, as there are also decreasing returns to achieving 100% of whatever the outcome measure is.

    also, NO school is punished for lower outcomes. ONLY higher ones get the points. so its not punitive AT ALL.

    does that make sense?

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  20. Is this too difficult for you to understand:


    SCORE =[ MPS (current year) X 40 ] + additional points


    Is there something in "current year" that you do not understand.
    It is either you do not understand simple arithmetic or you are simply twisting
    logic to deceive.

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  21. again, no. i am refering to Table A1, their main table: "The adjusted figures in columns 3 and 7 show what remains of these differences after
    adjustment for gender differences and differences in socio-economic status characteristics and
    urbanization among the groups"


    they describe table A1 as "We therefore have summarized the findings at the country level in Table A1 (information on the way in which the figures in this table were computed can be found in section B3). Columns 2 and 3 of this table show the unadjusted and adjusted average effects of home language on educational attendance of children aged 7-11 in the countries"


    note this are THEIR words, their interpretation.


    they dont focus on the philippines, but we disagreed on the appendix interpretation.

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  22. Demonstrate first that you could understand a simple arithmetic equation, such as the measure based on Mean Percentage Score shown above. You cannot even comprehend this simple equation, incorrectly claiming that the incentive is based solely on how much a school has improved.

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  23. your current status, whatever the measure is, is sunk. the important thing, incentives wise, is to award people based on gains made.

    makes sense?

    now does the absolute figures figure into the determination. of course. where ELSE would it be? a mistake would be to reward (low) outcomes.

    thats not a problem tho. recall that you said that the system rewards those with good outcomes. the response to that is simple -- it also rewards those who increase their outcomes.

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  24. You are not making sense because you are making up something that is in disagreement with DepEd memorandum no.12 s.2013 (the memo described in this post). Your logic is utterly twisted.

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  25. First you said, "the incentives are for % gain, NOT absolute values." Now, you are saying, "now does the absolute figures figure into the determination. of course." I think we're done in this discussion. This is a waste of time.

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  26. hold on -- what is twisted? truth: the memo rewards people who improve their outcome measures. this is good right? this makes sense, right? in fact this is the goal of the program -- to reward actions that lead to better outcomes.

    now, you seem to be fixated on the fact that the compensation scheme involves action current outcomes. whats the alternative?

    lets say its the reverse -- LOWER outcomes get more points while increases in outcomes get more points.

    the incentives are perverted -- do i try to improve my outcomes when it COSTS ME points?

    would that scheme make sense to you? seriously?

    like i said, the MOST important thing in an incentive scheme is the incentive to IMPROVE outcomes. this memo delivers that.

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  27. so you mentioned gates foundation...

    http://docs.gatesfoundation.org/united-states/documents/empowering-effective-teachers-empowering-strategy.pdf



    teacher incentives are a KEY part of improving teacher quality.

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  28. do you have the list of schools to receive the highest performance based bonus?

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  29. Only the guidelines have been released. The exam scores and dropout rates first need to be collected and then the rankings of the schools and divisions will be made. So I do not think that list is available yet.

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  30. http://budgetngbayan.com/wp-content/uploads/Peoples-Budget-2013.pdf

    Page 17. It could be a whole lot worse.

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  31. we are very sad because our school here in BULACAN is a high performing school , we excell in different contest no drop outs higher than 85% in nat how come that our PBB IS ONLY 5TH COMPARED to some other school that does not excelled LOWEST IN NAT LATE in down loading MOOE but have a highest PBB (25 TH ). how comeeeee........

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  32. One I receive my PBB worth 5K only, I will return it immediately to the Office of President Noynoy Aquino. Please help me follow up if it will reach the hands of the President.

    Garry Vacunawa
    Allen, Northern Samar

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  33. How can you? He has been surrounded by sycophants since birth, especially now that he is President. You can't exactly ask the President himself to drive to Western Union. I doubt he has the ability to know what real world is.

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  34. You're right, but I really want to do it. I do not care if it reaches the hands of Noynoy or not. I just want to satisfy my emotional and mental craving.

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  35. http://democracy.net.ph/democracy-net-ph-statement-hacking-lpgms-database-dilg/



    Be more afraid of National Payroll. Delayed benefits or lack thereof is one thing. Delayed salary is another. Mas malakas ang Union ng mga teachers. Butch Abad needs to be stopped.


    Wala pa siyang tinapos ito na naman. PBB palpak. Sabing may kasabay siyang new raiting system galing civil service eh di pa naman tapos yun, pero perwisyo na sa empliyado sa mga patakaran di pa napagisipan mabuti. Ang proyekto niyang Online Submission of Budget Proposal ni hindi nga naging online.


    Isipin mo na lang ang hirap niyo sa GSIS, gagawa pa ng ganito.

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  36. You admitting that PBB in other agencies is a competition not a collaboration?

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  37. what other agencies?

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  38. every national government agency is under the performance based incentive system. deped has a slightly modified grading criteria which is school/team as you say.


    are you saying those that aren't are prone to competition thus destroying team cohesion?

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  39. it depends on the incentive structure that they set up. whether pbbs enhance outcomes depends on what kind of competition is necessary to meet goals.

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  40. there's no "depends", DepEd is the only deviant for better or worse.

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  41. can somebody provide me a list of pbb recipients by division. We've been told that SARANGANI DIVISION is in "Better" category therefore, were are entitled of at least 10k bonus. Gen Santos, the nearest division to us had received theirs earlier in July. what happens now is that we've been hearing that we might not get it due to short of funds by the DBM. i don't know if it's true. If we could only have the official list of division recipients then we can finally rest our case. our division has been mimed about this or if you get answer from them it just a whisper in the air.

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  42. everyone here explain everything to the extent of their knowledge and experienced. i really appreciate that... someone is depending the agency and the other one is for the common good. but through all the sacrifices that a teacher is devoting let us be thankful for everything that we received... but for the government who only think for the betterment and for good future of everyone. i wish that our government is able to see the reality. it is parallel to the idea of sen. trillanes.

    what will happen to our country if we lost our very dedicated teachers, who are trying to reach out every learners in every stressed areas, remote places, highlands? without proper compensation, brain drain will soon to rise again like what is really happening now. Government be alarmed! we are loosing precious workers.

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  43. can you give me a list of school who receive pbb in the division of kalinga,car

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