| Merit Pay or No Merit Pay | | Print | |
| Thursday, 12 March 2009 | |
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President Obama recently suggested that as part of his educational reform he would like to see teachers earn merit pay. He argues that good teachers be awarded an extra compensation. On the surface of it, it sounds good! It works in business as it provides higher bonuses to workers who bring in more revenue or who outperform others. What is wrong with this picture when applied to teachers? How do you determine which teachers deserve merit pay? Should merit pay be determined by supervisors? That’s a laugh when you consider the evaluations done by supervisors these days. In my experience each supervisor had his/her own “reading” of the supervisory plan. Some didn’t understand how to do it for months and refused to admit it. Some gave “basic” to teachers who are extremely qualified in their field while they gave the highest grade to some who flaunted all sorts of rules set down by administrators themselves. Any instrument is only as good as the person using it. In other words, the instrument for evaluation, no matter how sound or well written, is corrupted by the person who uses it. Should merit pay be determined by standardized test scores? That too would prove unfair as only some subjects come under the purview of standardized testing. So should only English and Math teachers be part of the Merit Pay pool? What about the Arts and Foreign Languages and other subjects which are so crucial in the formation of a young person? Once again, we fall short of proper guidelines for decision making about this “merit pay.” Where do parents come into this whole equation? Time and again we hear how difficult it is to get some parents to take adequate interest in their children’s education. How often have you wrung your hands because students come unprepared to school, take little or no interest in doing their best on those standardized tests that bring the other students’ score down. My solution? Instead of spending money to divide the teachers by giving some merit pay and others none, invest in educating the parents! There is no such thing as an end to education. We learn through our lives, so why not invest in helping parents understand how to help their children achieve to the best of their potential, to reach for the stars. Maybe they too could then aspire to become the President of the United States of America. I am sure teachers who are still in the school system will have many more reasons as to why this scheme is not a good one. Share them with others on my website: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Opposing viewpoints are most welcome too. We can learn from each other just like we are advocating others do. |
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