TIPS DAN TRIK MENGHADAPI TOEFL

Saat ini banyak sekali perguruan tinggi di luar negeri yang menawarkan program-program pendidikan dengan salah satu syarat utama memenuhi nilai TOEFL tertentu yang mengindikasikan kemampuan berbahasa inggris.

Tidak hanya untuk keperluan pendidikan ke luar negeri saja, di dalam negeri pun ada beberapa perguruan tinggi terkemuka yang mensyaratkan nilai TOEFL tertentu sebagai syarat kelulusan.

Bahkan dalam penerimaan karyawan/karyawati untuk posisi tertentu juga mensyaratkan nilai TOEFL yang tinggi.

TOEFL merupakan singkatan dari Test Of English as a Foreign Language, yang diperkenalkan pada tahun 1960 oleh Educational Testing Services (ETS).

Ada dua jenis test TOEFL yang dapat dilakukan, yang pertama yaitu Computer-Based Test (CBT) dan yang kedua adalah Paper-Based Test (PBT). Secara umum, tidak ada perbedaan yang mencolok jika dilihat dari sisi materi test. Keduanya sama-sama mem-fokus-kan test pada tiga hal penting yang mengindikasikan kemahiran berbahasa inggris, yaitu Listening, Structure, dan Reading. di beberapa lembaga penyelenggara test TOEFL, terkadang ditambah lagi dengan Writing.

Perbedaan yang mendasar dari kedua jenis test tersebut adalah pada CBT test dilakukan dengan menggunakan media Komputer sedangkan PBT tidak. Perbedaan lainnya adalah pada skala nilai hasil test TOEFL, Skala nilai pada CBT adalah 0 - 300 sedangkan pada PBT adalah 310- 677. Untuk mudahnya, perhatikan tabel perbandingan berikut ini:

PBT	CBT
677	300
650	280
600	250
550	213
500	173
450	133
400	97

Jika nilai test TOEFL 500 (PBT) ke atas atau 173 (CBT) ke atas maka peluang untuk diterima di perguruan tinggi luar negeri yang diminati sangat besar.

Nilai test TOEFL di bawah 450 menunjukkan bahwa kemampuan bahasa Inggris yang masih standar (atau bahkan rendah) sehingga disarankan untuk mengikuti kursus bahasa Inggris.

Sedangkan nilai 450 - 499 menunjukkan kemampuan bahasa Inggris yang di atas rata-rata tetapi masih ada beberapa hal yang perlu dimantapkan lagi (reviewed) apakah di structure nya, listening, atau reading-nya tergantung nilai mana yang terendah.

Seringkali tidak disadari bahwa tidak selalu mereka yang pandai berbahasa Inggris dapat memperoleh nilai TOEFL yang tinggi dengan mudah. Hal tersebut dikarenakan test TOEFL tidak hanya sekedar membaca dan menerjemahkan saja tetapi lebih dari itu untuk mengetahui sejauh mana kemampuan dalam hal membaca dan mendengarkan percakapan bahasa Inggris serta struktur dalam bahasa Inggris. Masih tidak cukup hanya itu, terkadang diperlukan latihan dan pengalaman yang cukup sebelum terbiasa dengan soal-soal test TOEFL.

Apabila pernah mengikuti test TOEFL dan mendapatkan nilai tidak seperti yang diharapkan maka jangan khawatir karena nilai TOEFL tersebut sebenarnya dapat dijadikan "modal awal" untuk memperoleh nilai yang lebih tinggi lagi. Dengan pernah mengikuti test TOEFL sebelumnya maka dapat diketahui letak kelemahan yang perlu diperbaiki sehingga diharapkan pada test selanjutnya bisa memperoleh nilai yang lebih tinggi.

Terdapat empat tips yang dapat dijalankan untuk mendapatkan nilai TOEFL yang lebih tinggi, yaitu:

• Tips pertama, perhatikan dari tiga section (Listening, Structure, Reading) yang telah dinilai pada test TOEFL sebelumnya section mana yang mendapat nilai terendah. Jika nilai terendah adalah pada Listening maka fokuskan porsi review lebih banyak pada Listening. Demikian juga halnya jika nilai terendah pada Reading atau Structure, maka fokus review pada kedua section tersebut diberikan lebih banyak.

• Tips kedua, manfaatkan waktu sedikitnya satu jam sehari untuk melakukan review sehingga waktu tujuh jam seminggu yang diperlukan untuk review dapat terdistribusi secara merata di setiap harinya. Dengan waktu review yang relatif tidak terlalu lama di setiap harinya, maka hasilnya akan efektif untuk meningkatkan nilai TOEFL pada test berikutnya.

• Tips ketiga, jangan sekalipun mencoba untuk menghapalkan pertanyaan dan jawaban test TOEFL dari contoh-contoh soal TOEFL manapun. Hal tersebut dikarenakan contoh-contoh soal test tersebut bisa saja mirip tetapi mungkin tidak akan sama persis.

• Tips keempat, pada saat mengerjakan soal-soal latihan jangan tergesa-gesa untuk beralih ke soal latihan selanjutnya. Cobalah untuk berpikir dan memahami setiap jawaban yang kita pilih, kenapa jawaban b yang dipilih? kenapa tidak a? apakah soal ini mirip dengan soal sebelumnya? dimana kemiripannya? dan seterusnya.

Intinya, apa yang dilakukan dalam menghadapi test TOEFL pada dasarnya adalah mempelajari bagaimana agar kita memiliki pengetahuan yang cukup untuk dapat menjawab soal-soal test TOEFL dengan baik sehingga memperoleh nilai yang lebih tinggi dari sebelumnya.

Menghadapi test TOEFL tidak cukup hanya berbekal pengetahuan teknis tentang listening, structure, dan reading saja. Banyak hal non teknis juga perlu diperhatikan sehingga tidak mengganggu, membuyarkan konsentrasi atau bahkan menjadi penyebab gagalnya test TOEFL. Beberapa di antaranya yaitu:

• Tidak perlu terlalu berambisi untuk dapat menjawab benar 100% soal test TOEFL sehingga memaksakan diri untuk review seluruh materi TOEFL pada malam sebelum test TOEFL dilakukan. Cukup review inti dari setiap section yang dianggap penting, karena mereview semua materi justru akan membuat bingung dan panik. Ingat, dengan hanya 75% dari soal TOEFL dapat dijawab dengan benar itu sudah lebih dari cukup untuk mendapatkan nilai yang baik.

• Upayakan tidak bepergian di malam sebelum test. Kalau ini dilakukan maka Anda akan kehilangan kesempatan untuk melakukan review beberapa hal penting yang mungkin akan sangat berguna pada saat test keesokan harinya.

• Siapkan sedikitnya tiga buah pensil yang sudah diruncingkan (siap pakai), kalau bisa pensil yang sudah ada penghapusnya sehingga mudah dan cepat digunakan apabila diperlukan. Untuk antisipasi, tidak ada salahnya membawa juga peruncing pensil, tetapi upayakan pensil tetap sudah diruncingkan sejak dari rumah.

• Jangan lupa membawa tanda pengenal atau kartu test sesuai persyaratan mengikuti test TOEFL yang sudah ditentukan. Petugas dapat melarang peserta yang lalai dalam hal ini untuk mengikuti test.

• Bangunlah lebih pagi dari biasanya. Umumnya pengawas tidak mengijinkan peserta untuk masuk mengikuti test apabila test sudah berlangsung.

• Test akan berlangsung selama sekitar tiga jam tanpa istirahat, dengan dua jam adalah waktu untuk menyelesaikan soal-soal test sedangkan sisanya adalah untuk penjelasan dan instruksi-instruksi. Karenanya sarapan yang cukup akan sangat membantu untuk menghindari rasa lapar selama test.

• Meskipun di ruangan test biasanya sudah tersedia jam, akan sangat membantu apabila membawa jam.

• Ingat bahwa buku, kamus, tape recorder, telepon genggam dan yang sejenis, korek api, pulpen, dan catatan-catatan tidak akan diperkenankan untuk digunakan selama test.

• Umumnya tempat duduk pada saat test sudah ditentukan, duduklah sesuai tempat yang ditentukan dan berkonsentrasilah pada soal dan jawabannya. Hindari berkomunikasi dengan teman selama test berlangsung, karena bisa dituduh curang atau mencontek oleh pengawas test.

• Jawaban dari keseluruhan soal-soal test adalah multiple choice. Pilih salah satu jawaban yang benar dengan cara memberi tanda hitam (marking) secara penuh pada lingkaran oval jawaban yang tersedia. Pastikan tanda hitam tersebut tidak keluar dari batas lingkaran yang sudah ditentukan. Kelalaian dalam hal ini menyebabkan jawaban tidak dikenali oleh sistem komputer.

• Apabila diperlukan, dibenarkan untuk merubah jawaban, hapus jawaban yang salah dan marking jawaban lain yang benar tetapi lakukan dengan hati-hati karena "hapusan" yang tidak bersih menyebabkan komputer menganggap ada dua jawaban pada satu soal.

• Biasanya tidak diperkenankan untuk menandai jawaban pada lembar soal, memberi garis bawah, memberi catatan, atau mencoret-coret lembar soal. Jangan lakukan atau pengawas bisa memiliki alasan untuk menegur peserta test.

• Jawaban yang dinilai hanyalah jawaban Benar. Karenanya jangan biarkan lembar jawaban kosong karena jawaban salah tidak akan mengurangi nilai, dan jangan pula menjawab lebih dari satu jawaban.

• Jika tidak yakin mana jawaban yang benar dari seluruh jawaban tersedia, lakukan tips ini: Perhatikan jawaban-jawaban yang menurut Anda salah, kemudian dari jawaban tersisa pilih salah satu yang menurut Anda paling benar.

• Apabila sama sekali tidak dapat memilih mana jawaban yang benar dan salah, Pilih salah satu huruf dari jawaban (misal B) kemudian gunakan jawaban B ini untuk soal-soal lainnya yang juga sama sekali tidak tahu jawabannya. Dengan cara memberikan jawaban sama pada soal-soal yang tidak tahu jawabannya, maka kemungkinan (probabilita) jawaban tersebut benar adalah sebesar 25%. Gunakan trik ini terutama apabila waktunya sudah sangat mepet.

Beberapa hal di atas adalah hal-hal sederhana yang jika dilaksanakan akan sangat mengurangi faktor-faktor non teknis yang bisa menjadi penghambat atau penyebab kegagalan test TOEFL.

Persiapan sebelum menghadapi test TOEFL akan dapat meningkatkan pengetahuan dan kemampuan dalam memahami bahasa Inggris. Tetapi itu semua akan menjadi tidak berarti apabila soal-soal test TOEFL tidak dapat dijawab dengan baik karena faktor-faktor non teknis yang terjadi pada saat menjalani test TOEFL.

Berikut ini adalah beberapa hal penting yang perlu diperhatikan selama menjalani test TOEFL:

• Santai. Selama semua sudah dipersiapkan sebelumnya maka tidak ada alasan untuk gugup, panik, atau nervous menghadapi test. Apabila perasaan gugup, panik, atau nervous itu ternyata terjadi pada saat test, cobalah untuk menutup mata sejenak dan berkata pada diri sendiri, "Saya tidak perlu gugup, Saya sudah mempersiapkan diri" lalu tarik nafas dalam-dalam dan hembuskan perlahan-lahan, rasakan semua bagian tubuh merasa santai, rileks.

• Konsentrasi ke pertanyaan. Jangan bicara, pusatkan perhatian pada test TOEFL. Jangan melihat-lihat ke sekeliling kecuali jawaban yang berhubungan dengan soal-soal test TOEFL yang sedang dikerjakan. Jangan memikirkan nilai dan akibat yang didapat dari hasil test TOEFL ini, pusatkan semua perhatian pada soal dan jawaban test saat itu. Apabila tidak mengerti dan tidak mengetahui jawaban dari soal, pilihlah yang terbaik menurut Anda kemudian lupakan, pusatkan perhatian pada soal dan jawaban nomor selanjutnya.

• Jangan nyontek. Pada test TOEF, nyontek adalah permasalahan serius yang sangat dilarang. Jika ini dilakukan maka resikonya adalah jawaban test TOEFL tidak akan dinilai sehingga percuma sudah persiapan yang dilakukan selama ini.

• Terus belajar. Apabila nilai test TOEFL masih juga tidak memuaskan, jangan putus asa, jangan dengarkan apa kata orang. Evaluasi hasil test, cari dimana letak kelemahan, kemudian perbanyak lagi review di section yang lemah tersebut. Sebaliknya apabila nilainya sudah memuaskan, tetap terus belajar karena banyak informasi dan pengetahuan penting yang dapat "dikumpulkan" dengan kemampuan bahasa Inggris yang sudah dimiliki.

Kind of Text

Dear students…

There are so many questions about Report. I’m going to to give you short explanation. hope you’ll understand easily.

Well, it’s absolutely different between REPORT text and Laporan dalam bahasa Indonesia. Report as one of the genres that we learn does not mean laporan in Indonesia. So, what is a report text? Report means a text which describe things in general. It’s a little bit different from descriptive text which describe specific thing. To tell the facts of the things described, the writer usually uses present simple tense. Kecuali bendanya sudah punah, seperti dinosaurus. Penulis atau pembicara akan menggunakan simple past tense jika benda yang diceritakan sudah punah, alias dah jadul. Report text contains the class or subclass of the topic described, and then followed by telling the shape, parts, behaviour, etc in details.

Kalian pasti pernah mendeskripsikan sesuatu, bisa berupa hewan, tumbuhan, benda, dan hal lain secara umum. Contoh nyata jika ada turis asing yang meminta kalian menjelaskan tentang karakteristik orang Indonesia, kalian pasti akan mendeskripsikan orang Indonesia secara umum bukan mendeskripsikan diri kamu sendiri tentunya. Atau dalam pelajaran Biologi, kalian biasanya mempelajari karakteristik hewan secara umum, baik itu kelasnya (classification) hingga mempelajari sifat-sifat hewan tersebut secara detail (description).

Dalam bahasa Indonesia kita mengenal teks deskripsi. Namun dalam pelajaran bahasa Inggris teks deskripsi dibedakan menjadi dua bagian, yaitu descriptive dan report.

Yang harus diingat adalah Report adalah jenis teks yang mendeskripsikan sesuatu secara umum. Beda dengan Descriptive yang mendeskripsikan sesuatu secara spesifik atau tertentu (alias cuma satu). Contoh: Ada dua teks tentang komputer yaitu “Computer” dan “My Own Computer”, kalau dilihat dari judulnya kedua teks tersebut beda jenis teksnya: Computer (Umum; jenis teksnya Report); My own computer (Khusus, kan cuma komputer saya, makanya jenis teksnya Descriptive).

For example:

For many years, many people believed that the cleverest animals after man were the chimpanzees. Now, however, there is proof that dolphins may be even cleverer than these big apes.

Although a dolphin lives in the sea it is not a fish. It is a mammal. It is in many ways, therefore, like a human being.

Dolphins have a simple language. They are able to talk to one another. It may be possible for man to learn how to talk to dolphins. But this will not be easy because dolphins cannot hear the kind of sounds man can make. If man wants to talk to dolphins, therefore, he will have to make a third language which both he and the dolphins can understand.

Dolphins are also very friendly toward man. They often follow ships. There are many stories about dolphins guiding ships through difficult and dangerous water.

Text di atas menjelaskan tentang dolphin secara umum. Di paragraf kedua tercantum jelas bahwa dolphin belongs to mammal. Ini menjelaskan bahwa dophin termasuk ke dalam kelas mamalia. Di paragraf ketiga dan selanjutnya menjelaskan tentang kebiasaan dari dolphin secara umum.

Contoh lain:

A razor is a tool which is found in nearly every bathroom. A man who has thick hair on his face may have to shave twice a day. It is a habit which can be dangerous. For many years, a razor was a handle with a long piece of steel which was sharp and flat at one end. These razors had a long open blade.

But today’s razors are safer and more convenient to use. The thing which makes today’s razor safe is that the blade is small thin sharp piece of steel. The person who invented razor blades was a man called King Gillette. He was a clever man who had many ideas for new inventions. He wanted to make a blade that was safe and which could be used several times. In 1891, he invented a new type of razor blade. It was short and it was held in a special handle. The sharp edge of the blade did not stick out very far. It was a razor which was safe to use. It was more difficult to cut yourself than with the older type of razor.

Gillette’s razor blade became popular. It was an invention which worked well and which everybody need because each blade only lasted 8 to 10 times. Gillette sold many of his new safety blades and soon became a millionaire.

Teks di atas menceritakan tentang benda mati yaitu razor. Di paragraf awal menggambarkan tentang suatu alat berupa razor secara umum. Di paragraf berikutnya menjelaskan tentang bagian dan bentuk dari razor.

It’s clear that both of the texts above describe things in general. Report teks biasanya kita temukan dalam buku-buku ilmiah, science khususnya.

Social Function:

Describe the way things are (for example: a man-made thing, animals, plants). The things must be a representative of their class.

Text organization/Generic Structure:

1. General classification (Introduce the topic of the report, such as: the class or the subclass)
2. Description (tell the shape/form, parts, behaviour, habitat, way of survival)

Language Feature:

1. The use of general nouns
2. The use of relating verbs
3. The use of present tense
4. The use of behavioral verbs

DOLPHINS

For many years, many people believed that the cleverest animals after man were the chimpanzees. Now, however, there is proof that dolphins may be even cleverer than these big apes.

Although a dolphin lives in the sea it is not a fish. It is a mammal. It is in many ways, therefore, like a human being.

Dolphins have a simple language. They are able to talk to one another. It may be possible for man to learn how to talk to dolphins. But this will not be easy because dolphins cannot hear the kind of sounds man can make. If man wants to talk to dolphins, therefore, he will have to make a third language which both he and the dolphins can understand.

Dolphins are also very friendly toward man. They often follow ships. There are many stories about dolphins guiding ships through difficult and dangerous water.

 

GOLD

Gold is a precious metal. Gold is used as ornaments or as money.

Gold is found in many places, but in a small supply. It is often found on the surface of the earth. Since gold is a heavy substance, it is sometimes found loose on the bottom of rivers. The gold is found together with sand and rocks, and must be separated from them. It is simple to search for this type of gold.

It is not usually necessary to drill for gold, but when a layer of gold is located deep below the surface of the earth, it is possible to drill a hole into the ground. Engineers have developed modern process for removing gold from rocks.

Since gold is not very hard, it is sometimes melted and added to other substances for making rings, coins, and art objects. It will be priced forever because it is beautiful, rare, and useful.

 

How to Make Great Teachers

How to Make Great Teachers

By Claudia Wallis

We never forget our best teachers—those who imbued us with a deeper understanding or an enduring passion, the ones we come back to visit years after graduating, the educators who opened doors and altered the course of our lives. I was lucky enough to encounter two such teachers my senior year in a public high school in Connecticut. Dr. Cappel told us from the outset that his goal was not to prepare us for the AP biology exam; it was to teach us how to think like scientists, which he proceeded to do with a quiet passion, mainly in the laboratory. Mrs. Hastings, my stern, Radcliffe-trained English teacher, was as devoted to her subject as the gentle Doc Cappel was to his: a tough taskmaster on the art of writing essays and an avid guide to the pleasures of James Joyce. Looking back, I'd have to credit this inspirational pair for carving the path that led me to a career writing about science.

It would be wonderful if we knew more about teachers such as these and how to multiply their number. How do they come by their craft? What qualities and capacities do they possess? Can these abilities be measured? Can they be taught? Perhaps above all: How should excellent teaching be rewarded so that the best teachers—the most competent, caring and compelling—remain in a profession known for low pay, low status and soul-crushing bureaucracy?

Such questions have become critical to the future of public education in the U.S. Even as politicians push to hold schools and their faculty members accountable as never before for student learning, the nation faces a shortage of teaching talent. About 3.2 million people teach in U.S. public schools, but, according to projections by economist William Hussar at the National Center for Education Statistics, the nation will need to recruit an additional 2.8 million over the next eight years owing to baby-boomer retirement, growing student enrollment and staff turnover—which is especially rapid among new teachers. Finding and keeping high-quality teachers are key to America's competitiveness as a nation. Recent test results show that U.S. 10th-graders ranked just 17th in science among peers from 30 nations, while in math they placed in the bottom five. Research suggests that a good teacher is the single most important factor in boosting achievement, more important than class size, the dollars spent per student or the quality of textbooks and materials.

Across the country, hundreds of school districts are experimenting with new ways to attract, reward and keep good teachers. Many of these efforts borrow ideas from business. They include signing bonuses for hard-to-fill jobs like teaching high school chemistry, housing allowances ($15,000 in New York City) and what might be called combat pay for teachers who commit to working in the most distressed schools. But the idea gaining the most momentum—and controversy—is merit pay, which attempts to measure the quality of teachers' work and pay teachers accordingly.

Traditionally, public-school salaries are based on years spent on the job and college credits earned, a system favored by unions because it treats all teachers equally. Of course, everyone knows that not all teachers are equal. Just witness how parents lobby to get their kids into the best classrooms. And yet there is no universally accepted way to measure competence, much less the ineffable magnetism of a truly brilliant educator. In its absence, policymakers have focused on that current measure of all things educational: student test scores. In districts across the country, administrators are devising systems that track student scores back to the teachers who taught them in an attempt to apportion credit and blame and, in some cases, target help to teachers who need it. Offering bonuses to teachers who raise student achievement, the theory goes, will improve the overall quality of instruction, retain those who get the job done and attract more highly qualified candidates to the profession—all while lifting those all-important test scores.

Such efforts have been encouraged by the Bush Administration, which in 2006 started a program that awards $99 million a year in grants to districts that link teacher compensation to raising student test scores. Merit pay has also become part of the debate in Congress over how to improve the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), triggering an outcry from teachers' unions, which oppose federal intrusion into how teachers get paid and evaluated. The subject is a touchy one for the Democrats, who count on support from the powerful teachers' unions. Last summer, Barack Obama endorsed merit pay at a meeting of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, so long as the measure of merit is "developed with teachers, not imposed on them and not based on some arbitrary test score." Hillary Clinton says she does not support merit pay for individual teachers but does advocate performance- based pay on a schoolwide basis.

It's hard to argue against the notion of rewarding the best teachers for doing a good job. But merit pay has a long, checkered history in the U.S., and new programs to pay teachers according to test scores have already backfired in Florida and Houston. What holds more promise is broader efforts to transform the profession by combining merit pay with more opportunities for professional training and support, thoughtful assessments of how teachers do their jobs and new career paths for top teachers. Here's a look at what's really needed to improve teaching in the U.S.—and what just won't work.

The Leaky Bucket

There's no magic formula for what makes a good teacher, but there is general agreement on some of the prerequisites. One is an unshakable belief in children's capacity to learn. "Anyone without this has no business in the classroom," says Margaret Gayle, an expert on gifted education at Duke University, who has trained thousands of teachers in North Carolina. Another requirement, especially in the upper grades, is a deep knowledge of one's subject. According to research on teacher efficacy by statistician William Sanders, the higher the grade, the more closely student achievement correlates to a teacher's expertise in her field. Nationally, that's a problem. Nearly 30% of middle- and high school classes in math, English, science and social studies are taught by teachers who didn't major in a subject closely related to the one they are teaching, according to Richard Ingersoll, professor of education and society at the University of Pennsylvania. In the physical sciences, the figure is 68%. In high-achieving countries like Japan and South Korea, he says, "you have far less of this misassignment going on."

Other essential skills require on-the-job practice. It takes at least two years to master the basics of classroom management and six to seven years to become a fully proficient teacher. Unfortunately, a large percentage of public-school teachers give up before they get there. Between a quarter and a third of new teachers quit within their first three years on the job, and as many as 50% leave poor, urban schools within five years. Hiring new teachers is "like filling a bucket with a huge hole in the bottom," says Thomas Carroll, president of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, a Washington-based nonprofit.

Why do teachers bail? One of the biggest reasons is pay. U.S. public-school teachers earn an average annual salary of less than $48,000, and they start off at an average of about $32,000. That's what Karie Gladis, 29, earned as a new teacher in Miami. She scrimped for 31�2 years and then left for a job in educational publishing. "It was stressful living from paycheck to paycheck," she says. "If my car broke down or if I needed dental work, there was just no wiggle room."

But money isn't the only reason public-school teachers quit. Ben Van Dyk, 25, left a job teaching in a high-poverty Philadelphia school after just one year to take a position at a Catholic school where his earning prospects are lower but where he has more support from mentors, more control over how he teaches and fewer problems with student discipline. Novice teachers are much more likely to call it quits if they work in schools where they feel they have little input or support, says Ingersoll. And there's evidence that the best and brightest are the first to leave. Teachers with degrees from highly selective college are more likely to leave than those from less prestigious schools. In poor districts, attrition rates are so high, says Carroll, that "we wind up taking anybody just to have an adult in the classroom."

How Do You Measure Merit?

To the business-minded people who are increasingly running the nation's schools, there's an obvious solution to the problems of teacher quality and teacher turnover: offer better pay for better performance. The challenge is deciding who deserves the extra cash. Merit-pay movements in the 1920s, '50s and '80s stumbled over just that question, as the perception grew that bonuses were awarded to principals' pets. Charges of favoritism, along with unreliable funding and union opposition, sank such experiments.

But in an era when states are testing all students annually, there's a new, less subjective window onto how well a teacher does her job. As early as 1982, University of Tennessee statistician Sanders seized on the idea of using student test data to assess teacher performance. Working with elementary-school test results in Tennessee, he devised a way to calculate an individual teacher's contribution, or "value added," to student progress. Essentially, his method is this: he takes three or more years of student test results, projects a trajectory for each student based on past performance and then looks at whether, at the end of the year, the students in a given teacher's class tended to stay on course, soar above expectations or fall short. Sanders uses statistical methods to adjust for flaws and gaps in the data. "Under the best circumstances, " he claims, "we can reliably identify the top 10% to 30% of teachers."

Sanders devised his method as a management tool for administrators, not necessarily as a basis for performance pay. But increasingly, that's what it is used for. Today he heads a group at the North Carolina�based software firm SAS, which performs value-added analysis for North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and districts in about 15 other states. Most use it to measure schoolwide performance, but some are beginning to use value-added calculations to determine bonuses for individual teachers.

Sanders' method is costly and complicated, however. Under steady pressure from NCLB to raise test scores, some districts have looked for quicker, easier ways to identify and reward teachers who boost achievement. In some cases, they have made the call largely on the basis of a single year's test results—a method experts dismiss as unreliable. In Florida, for instance, one of Governor Jeb Bush's final initiatives before he left office in January 2007 was to push through a merit-pay program that offered a 5% bonus to teachers in the top 25% in each participating district, with selection based at least 50% on how much their students' test scores jumped from one year to the next. Houston had a similar initiative, though without the 25% cap.

Both schemes met with fierce resistance. Teachers rebelled against the notion that a year's worth of instruction could be judged by how students did on a single test on a single day. They objected to the lack of clarity about how teachers of subjects not tested by the state would be assessed. And they railed against a system that pitted one colleague against another in a competition for bonuses. To make matters worse, there were gruesome glitches. In Houston, a newspaper website identified which teachers got bonuses. Later, 99 employees were asked to return about $74,000 in bonus checks issued by mistake. In Florida, one county ran short of bonus funds while another had an embarrassing discrepancy between the number of awards given in predominantly white schools and the number that went to schools with mainly black students. Both Florida and Houston have improved their programs, but local teachers remain wary. "The new plan doesn't have clear goals," charges Gayle Fallon, who heads the Houston Federation of Teachers. She fully expects "all hell to break loose again."

Beyond Merit Pay

There are better ways. Florida and Houston might have avoided their mistakes if they had examined some of the more thoughtful approaches to rewarding good teaching that are being tried elsewhere—programs that actively involve teachers and look at more than one measure of how they do their job. In Denver, for example, Professional Compensation, or ProComp, is the product of a seven-year collaboration among the teachers' union, the district and city hall. Rolled out last school year, ProComp includes nine ways for teachers to raise their earnings, some through bonuses and some through bumps in salary. New hires are automatically enrolled, while veterans have the option of sticking with the old salary schedule. But in just one year, half of Denver's 4,555 teachers have signed on.

For Taylor Betz, the program is a no-brainer. A highly regarded 15-year veteran who teaches math in the city's struggling Bruce Randolph School, Betz can rack up an additional $4,268 this school year if she and her school meet all their goals. That includes $1,067 for working in a high-needs school, another $1,067 if students in her school exceed expectations on the state exams, $356 if she meets professional academic objectives she helped set in the beginning of the year, $1,067 if she earns a good evaluation from her principal and $711 if her school is judged to be a "distinguished school," on the basis of a mix of criteria that includes parent satisfaction.

Before ProComp, Betz had reached the top of the district's pay scale at $53,500 and, despite high marks from her bosses, was looking at nothing more than an annual cost-of-living raise (currently $260) for the rest of her career. "I've worked in hard-to-serve schools my entire career," says Betz. "I make home visits. I make phone calls. I'm looking at ProComp as compensation for the things that are above and beyond." Betz didn't expect performance pay to change anything about how she does her job but says it has made her even more driven. "Now I refuse to let kids fail," she says. "I'm going to bulldoze whatever the problem is and solve it." The bonus money is simply a just reward. "I'm not a money grubber. Most teachers aren't. But people in other professions get raises," she says. "Why shouldn't we?"

There's little research on what makes for a successful merit-pay system, but several factors seem critical, says Matthew Springer, director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University. Denver's program includes many of them: a careful effort to earn teacher buy-in to the plan, clarity about how it works, multiple ways of measuring merit, rewards for teamwork and schoolwide success, and reliable financing. In fact, Denver's voters agreed to pay an extra $25 million a year in taxes for nine years to support the program.

It's too soon to say if ProComp will raise achievement in Denver, but a pilot study found that students of teachers who enrolled on a trial basis performed better on standardized tests than other students. The program is already successful by another measure: raising the number of teachers applying to work in Denver's most troubled schools. Jake Firman, 22, who joined Teach for America right out of college in 2007, says he chose Denver from a list of 26 cities largely because of ProComp. "I thought it was a very cool idea," says Firman, who stands to earn extra pay for filling a hard-to-staff spot (middle-school math) at a high-needs school.
Another impressive model is the Teacher Advancement Program, or TAP, created by the Milken Family Foundation in 1999 and now in place in 180 schools in 14 states and Washington. TAP is more than a merit-pay program. At TAP schools, some of which are unionized, raises are based on the teachers' performance—which is measured by a combination of structured observations made four to six times a year and student test results, using a Sanders-style value-added formula. The best TAP teachers can climb the professional ladder in three ways: remaining in the classroom but becoming a mentor to others; leaving one's own classroom to become a full-time teacher of teachers, or master teacher; or taking the traditional route into administration.
The element of TAP that gets the most praise from teachers is its rigorous approach to helping them build and refine their skills and learn from one another. To do this, TAP teachers meet in small groups led by a master teacher for one to two hours a week, generally during the school day. That degree of supervision can be a tough sell to veteran teachers. "I hated it tooth and nail," says Cathy Dailey, who has been teaching science at Bell Street Middle School in Clinton, S.C., for 21 years. "All of a sudden I had to articulate my goals and know that someone was going to come in and watch me." Dailey particularly disliked being forced to reflect in writing on how well her lessons went. "I'd rather you beat me with a stick!" she says. But six years after TAP was introduced, Dailey admits that it has made her more versatile and effective. "I wouldn't be nearly the teacher I am today if it weren't for the big T-A-P," she says. "I do many more labs and more hands-on lessons. I'm always looking for new ideas on the Internet." She even likes writing the reflections. "You really evaluate what you did and how effective you were," she says. "Sometimes I give myself a pat on the back, and sometimes I think, Oh, boy, you've got to change that."

Since Bell Street Middle School adopted TAP in 2001, it has doubled the percentage of students scoring at an advanced level in math and reading and reduced the percentage scoring "below basic" in math 46%. Meanwhile, teacher turnover has fallen from a disastrous 32% a year to less than 10%. Jason Culbertson, who heads TAP in South Carolina, says such improvements in student achievement, quality of teaching and teacher morale are typical. A recent analysis involving 610 TAP teachers in six states, conducted by the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, the nonprofit that runs TAP, found that 38% of TAP teachers produced above-average gains in student achievement in a single year, vs. 26% of teachers in a control group.
This school year South Carolina extended the program from 18 schools to 43, including all 10 schools in rural, impoverished Marlboro County, where 20% of teachers are not even certified. The challenge is funding, says Culbertson. South Carolina's TAP schools draw on a variety of federal, state and foundation funds to pay for stipends of $10,000 for master teachers and $5,000 for mentors and bonuses that range from $350 to $9,500. Culbertson is always looking for ways to attract more talent. His latest project: refurbishing an old Marlboro County mansion as an almost rent-free home for top teachers. "I treat the job more like a crusade," says the 28-year-old former social-studies teacher. "My goal is systematic change across the state."

It's a good goal for an entire nation in need of better-quality teaching. As U.S. school districts embark on hundreds of separate experiments involving merit pay, some lessons seem clear. If the country wants to pay teachers like professionals— according to their performance, rather than like factory workers logging time on the job—it has to provide them with other professional opportunities, like the chance to grow in the job, learn from the best of their peers, show leadership and have a voice in decision-making, including how their work is judged. Making such changes would require a serious investment by school districts and their taxpayers. But it would reinvigorate a noble profession.

— With reporting by Rita Healy/Denver, Hilary Hylton/Houston and Kathie Klarreich/Miami

Sumber : Millist Rumah Ilmu (TIME Magazine)