Should public school teachers get merit pay?

Yes

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by Michael Patrick

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Why do we work? To be compensated for performing a service that others value. It is "trade." Is it not a cultural paradigm that we are paid more for what we do well or less for what we do poorly? Superior performance is rewarded. Mediocrity receives mediocre remuneration. Simple.

I've never understood why merit pay for teachers is such a contentious argument. Why not give superior teachers merit pay? Doesn't that help new or lackluster teachers see that there are benefits to improvement?

I applaud and support teachers. I contribute to classroom needs and join School Action Committees. I'm also old enough to have altered my criticisms of my "bad" teachers and "good" teachers and the greater number of those who made no difference at all.

Bad or good is relative and we must be careful. We can all remember the "bad" teacher; the one who didn't give us a break, who made us work, who embarrassed us for not paying attention. And we can all remember that special teacher who inspired us, made us want to learn and achieve, made a class or a subject so fascinating we couldn't get enough. Interestingly, these two examples are very similar. They are the "best" ones and should be given merit pay.

They are unlike the teachers who droned through class every day or were bored to tears or who had no depth of subject matter, or who cracked jokes all day, or who didn't give us homework or call on us in class, who graded easily and we didn't learn a thing. Oh, how we loved them. Such teachers should be denied merit pay.

We have a crisis of teachers in the US; more students than teachers to teach them. We instituted our mandatory public education system in the early Twentieth Century, a great idea that created the strongest middle class of any nation in history. But in the last fifty years we've done these things:

1. Increased our multicultural and multilingual population making standard teaching more difficult.

2. Reduced the qualifications of teachers to bring more into the public education system.

3. Given all public school teachers "tenure" to keep them from leaving for other vocations.

4. Established unions to protect the interest of all educators regardless of talent or commitment.

5. Caused money to be the sole objective and reward of education.

Don't forget the "Bell Curve." While Harvard psychologist Richard Hernstein purported that IQ was a predictor of success, there is a more relevant observation to be made from his work; that in every discipline, there will be a few who are the A and B students and a few D and F students and a huge number in between that will be C students in performance and impact. We can't be critical of the Cs; they are by far the most numerous and bear the load of society's dreams.

It is clear we in America have fallen behind in educating our populace. Throwing federal money at across-the-board teacher salary increases hasn't had a positive effect, yet merit pay remains anathema to unions and legislators alike. To pay every teacher equally without evaluating them by basic performance metrics has clearly failed.

We don't know what to do. We are afraid to institute merit pay for fear that too many teachers will take other work and leave public schools in even worse straits. That's extortion. I personally don't believe even average teachers will find other work for the same pay, now over $45,000 a year nationwide. Good work if you can get it, especially if you don't have to do anything to get paid but show up.

What if we continued cost-of-living increases for all teachers but denied low-performing teachers automatic raises and put those savings toward merit pay for high performing teachers? Doesn't it make sense to reward higher-performing teachers? While teacher retention is a critical concern today, it does not diminish the need to retain great teachers.

Perhaps we don't want to lose ANY teacher regardless of performance, but superior teachers are the ones who CAN find work elsewhere. They should be rewarded. They are the example of excellence and initiative that will cause other teachers to strive for a higher level. If they're paid more too, that sweetens the pot. Incentive-driven merit pay may even bring more good teachers into the fold.

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