by Albert Aunchman

Created on: March 17, 2008

Merit Pay: Who Gets It?

Merit pay for teachers is an idea that has been around for some time. Many states have adopted some form of merit pay to encourage teachers to raise the level of achievement of their students on standardized test scores. Some merit pay proposals rely on subjective evaluations of teachers by administrators or peers. The operative term here is, subjective. What criteria would be used in awarding more pay to one teacher over the other? Maybe we can base it on how happy their students are, or the number of students sent to the principals office for disciplinary reasons. Should we reward committed teachers whose students show little or no progress on tests or the lackluster educator who teaches to the test to ensure better scores

In most school systems, the makeup of the student body can range from bright, highly motivated students, to students who are in school because it is mandated by law. This diversity exists from one school to another as well as within a single school. How do we decide which teachers should receive merit pay? Should it be the teacher whose students come from supportive homes and will probably do well no matter who the teacher is, or the teacher who in spite of heroic efforts has students who score poorly on standardized tests because lack of motivation brought on by societal problems?

The problem with merit pay lies in the assumption that effective teaching can be measured by the end product; a students score on a standardized test.

If two exact automobiles were being built side by side on an assembly line, which workers would qualify for merit pay: The line that produces a perfect car by putting all the well engineered parts together or the line that works harder and produces an inferior product because the parts that are supplied don't fit or are poorly manufactured? Teachers are faced with a similar scenario on a daily basis.

The business model of education is one of the reasons that schools are failing. We are teaching subjects and content when we should be teaching children. No amount of merit pay is going to change the face of education in this country. Merit pay proposals only feed into the notion that if we throw more money at the problem, it will go away. There are even programs that pay students for learning. Is this merit pay for students? Americans think that throwing money at something, whether it's foreign policy, schools, or welfare will solve the problem.

Merit pay for teachers will only exacerbate the problem. It is an attempt to place the blame for failing schools on poor teachers. If money is going to create a new breed of teacher, then why not just pay all of them more, since it is impossible to quantify what a teacher does. An effective teacher may not help a student raise test scores at the end of the school year, but that teacher may be the person that inspires that student to follow a dream and succeed in life; that can't be measured or rewarded monetarily. The results of effective teaching may take years to assess.

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