Edu-Zombie
I already introduced you to Maine Rep. Brian Bolduc last month. He introduced a bill that simply states:
“A salary of a teacher may not be based upon the measurable performance or productivity of the teacher or a student of the teacher.”
Yesterday Bolduc’s bill came in front of the education committee, and his statements show just how thoroughly indoctrinated he is – to the point where even the Maine Education Association fails to meet his exacting standards:
* “Unlike business performance, teaching performance is much more subjective. ”
* “Judging a teacher on test scores of students is like judging a doctor by how healthy patients are. In addition, using test scores will force teachers to just teach test material rather than focus on the larger, more well-rounded curriculum.”
* “If a teachers’ union wants to pursue (merit pay), they’re (sic) not in the spirit of an equitable system.”
* “I think it’s too complicated an issue to let local school departments figure out.”
* “When asked by a committee member if some teachers were better than others, Bolduc, who’s looking for work as a teacher now, said it would be impossible to quantify because all criteria would be opinion based.”
* “Obama is wrong on this. Senior educators tell me this is going to come and go like lots of other fads in education.”
* “Judging good teaching is like judging good art or good music.”
As to the last remark, well, it may be true, but bad teaching, much like bad art or bad music, tends to draw universal agreement.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:17
WOW! I was skeptical about Bolduc’s attitude of throwing the baby out with the bath-water, but this is extreme.
It seems to me that Bolduc is just too lazy to search for a solution to make merit pay work. It will take a lot more than just linking it to test scores of course, but it seems he can’t get beyond that step.