Merit Pay

Is merit pay a good way to improve teacher performance?

Merit pay is a very good way to improve teacher performance.  Assigning a label to teachers and rewarding them for "climbing the ladder" is the same way that people in the financial industry are rewarded as well.  If Merit Pay is coupled with Peer Review and Peer Coaching then that is a perfect set up.  As discussed in the articles this week, teachers should be labeled and rewarded for those labels.  The labels should be Veteran down to a Novice teacher.  Veteran teachers should be given more money for coaching younger, less-experienced teachers.  If we are trying to get away from the use of standardized testing, then merit pay shouldn't be linked to student performance on any standardized test.  I believe that the Merit Pay programs that are rewarding teachers for student improvement on standardized testing are in place because the government wants more teachers to favor the use of standardized testing. 


Would you want to work in a merit pay environment?

I would be willing to work in a merit pay environment under certain circumstances.  I would not want a list of teachers published to any website that contains names of people that have been awarded money for progress in the program.  I think that should be kept private because parents would have too many questions and concerns about what is going on with their children.  They may want teachers that don't receive any rewards fired. 

Of all the teacher recognition/compensation alternatives discussed on these web sites, which makes the most sense to you?

The only program that makes any sense to me is the program with the most teacher involvement.  The programs that discuss merit pay based on teacher output not on student output.  The point is to have better teachers in our schools and the "trickle down" effect will be that the students will learn more and become better students in the long run.  We are a society that wants immediate results, and that's why they want to tie these Merit Pay programs to standardized testing.  The idea is that if we incentivize teachers to do better and they become better teachers, then we get better results on the standardized test from our students.  If teachers cover everything they need to cover in a school year and prepare their students to take a standardized test, then what have they taught their students.  They have taught their students to get through a test.  We want our students to take what we teach them into the real world and do something with it; that's the real result of a good teacher.