Merit pay for teachers making progress
Posted by BrianFrom the NY Times:
For years, the unionized teaching profession opposed few ideas more vehemently than merit pay, but those objections appear to be eroding as school districts in dozens of states experiment with plans that compensate teachers partly based on classroom performance.
The very concept of paying all workers identically is absurd. It flies in the face of the irrefutable fact that each and every person - teachers included - is different. We all have different innate and learned talents as well as vastly different work ethics. Recognizing that reality and rewarding good teachers and, yes, punishing the bad ones is the most effective way to improve education.
Maybe Alabama can begin to pay teachers based on their merit rather than their mere existence and pull us out of the educational gutter. Oh wait, that goes against the union philosophy, which is to protect the weak at the expense of the strong. So much for the kids; we have to preserve the jobs of those who don’t deserve them.
Related content:
June 20th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
The idea of merit pay [performance based pay] is a good one. Teachers should be paid more for teaching better. At the moment, few teachers in America receive bonuses. It seems like a pretty natural idea to me.
I don’t think teachers are somehow immune from needing supervision. But there’s precious little of it available. Private sector firms seem to think that reasonable levels of management make them better companies, but public schools don’t. Why?
June 21st, 2007 at 3:51 am
Speaking from my wife’s experience, lack of merit pay is one of the biggest morale killers for good, motivated teachers. Why kill yourself if the lazy guy down the hall gets the same pay for doing much less?
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:41 am
Gov. Riley’s been pushing for this, but our legislature refuses to even debate it.