Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

Call it performance-based pay or merit pay, the idea that how well you do your job — not just what you do, how long you’ve been at it or how many credentials you’ve earned — affects what you earn needs to be more widely adopted in our public school system to encourage quality education….

While the Vermont chapter of the National Education Association argues that an increase in base teacher pay is the first to step toward attracting and retaining the best teachers, the idea ignores current economic realities.

When thousands of Vermonters are losing their jobs each month and the unemployment rate tops three-decade highs, the benefits and job security coupled with the pay that teaching in public schools offer should be more than enough incentive for those interested in the profession for more than money alone….

A system that evaluates teacher performance would create a way to reward excellence, and a way to rid our schools of teachers who fail to meet the standards. Using supervisor evaluation means injecting a degree of subjectivity into the compensation equation, but how is that different from most other workplaces? A merit pay system will mean some teachers will receive bigger pay increases than others, again the reality for most of us who work for a living.

For other entries in the “Who Lost..” series, click here.