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27 Comments
- BassMastr, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10Let's just end the war a week early and put the 14 billion we would save into our school systems and give all teachers a raise.
- sbader, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9I think the best point was ppointing out the disparity between lower income inner city schools vs. more wealthy school districts. Which teacher should make more, the one that has to deal with more drugs, gang violence, and a larger number of pregnant teenagers or the one that has all very well behaved kids, who are taking college prep classes..
- figec, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6This is a terrible list; those opposed to merit based pay can come up with something better. Most would be teachers, after all.
For example, "3. It's Not Fair" is a conclusion, not an argument. I'd expect to hear that from my kids, not an adult debater.
Some points in this list are reasonable, but on the whole, in terms of an effective argument, I'd grade it a D. - Error601, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Or the real reason: Slack ass teachers can't just hand out high grades to make their success rate look good.
- secretwhistle, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6My sister is a teacher at an inner-city Native American middle school in Minneapolis, MN. Suffice to say, performance-based pay would only hurt her income no matter how much effort she puts in. Most of her students have no interest in what is being taught and put in little to no effort on whatever work is handed out. Most of the parents seem to consider this free daycare.
I think we all can agree teachers don't make enough money. And, yes, there are several teachers out there that just don't care. But I think the number of students who don't care is the real problem.
I'm not sure what the solution is but this bill would hurt many more educators than it would help. - mynameistim, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5i'll buy the fact that there are differences between the inner city schools and the preppy schools, but there is a clear happy medium - adjust for it.
provide merit raises, along with base salaries based on district/school.
they don't want that, because there are far too many incompetant teachers in the country, who would get screwed. - Liam76, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I don't kknow why the two comments above are getting dugg down.
If a teacher makes students excel faster they should get paid more. There are tons of ways you could eleminate the differences between poor and richer school districts and only focus on how much the teacher has taught the students. - theblooms, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4"Teachers shouldn't be judged based on the grades of the students."
Horse *****. That is the biggest load of crap I think I have ever read on digg comments. My last semester of college, I was taking P-Chem I, Thermodynamics, and on our first test, I busted a big bad 16. Class average? 30.3. During the first class after the test, my professor came in, and before any students even had a chance to say anything, he said and I quote "I have attempted to teach you Theromdynamics, and I have failed."
The test scores plainly showed that he didn't do his job, and he knew it. He radically altered his style, and on my second mid-term, I got a 77, 3rd highest in the class. The class average went up to 68.7, a SOLID C/C+.
Teachers inherently know whether they are doing a good job or not EXACTLY by looking at their student's achievement.
What we REALLY need to focus on is DISCIPLINE in the classroom. If a student is rowdy or disruptive, he needs to be REMOVED FROM THE CLASS. And if the student can't be setteled down, bust his ass with the Board of Education. It ***** works wonders. And if for some strange reason, that STILL doesn't work (it will 99+% of the time, ask any veteran teacher) remove the child from the school. Every district used to have reform schools. They need to be re-opened.
There, with some old fashioned discipline, your problems have been mostly solved. The other issues will work themselves out with decent teachers. - jeffiek, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Why is the US Federal Government even involved in education? Some food for thought:
The population of Australia is somewhat less than that of California. Australia manages to educate its children just fine. The population of New York City is about the same as Switzerland. Switzerland manages to educate its children just fine.
There is no need for the Federal government to be involved at all. So why are the people paying for something they don't need? - laroja, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5This is a good article. True merit and No Child Left Behind are in no way related. Good teachers only see it as a barrier to teaching, something which you have to battle against if you want your students to actually learn. I taught in public school last year and I don't want to go back!
- iamso910, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Just get the government out of education entirely.
Teachers ought to earn demand from students (customers), by actually learning to teach them something that is beneficial. Current teachers are, on average, little more than prison guards indoctrinating politically correct propaganda.
Q: What's more ignorant and isolated from the real world than a teacher?
A: A bureaucrat for the education department. - sotopheavy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Those teaching a more advanced subject should be paid more, and a small percentage bonus based on their performance. Those teaching a basic subject should be paid less with a higher percentage bonus coming from performance.
- arenz003, on 10/11/2007, -3/+6The real problem is with the mob mentality of the teachers' unions who refuse to be progressive or to take responsibility for the development of the students. The policymakers are being corrupted by the teachers' union, affraid to upset the most powerful union in the nation.
- ArmyOfFun, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4A good way around this is to measure the difference between the student's previous test scores with their current test scores. If the kids are showing improvement, you probably have a pretty good teacher, no improvement a serviceable one while a decline might indicate a poorly performing teacher. This limits the disparity between inner city and wealthy suburbs. It might even be easier to show improvement for a failing inner city class than a wealthy prep school which is already at the top of their game.
In any case, I think it would be helpful to measure a number of things: student evaluations, parent evaluations, student improvement from previous year(s), peer teacher evaluations and so on. Once we have this sort of data, I think it would be easier to derive a good objective measure of teacher merit. Not everything can be boiled down to a number, but I think the good teachers will stand out and we should reward them appropriately. - FonWin, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4This can be worked around any number of ways. From starting the wages at a baseline of current performance, to paying teachers higher mulitplier in at risk situations.
But to continue to support an educational systems that are failing our children is wrong. - MaynardJK, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Screw pay-for-performance. We need to make teaching like any other job in this country and make it keep-your-job-for-performance. We should eliminate tenure. I have seen many good teachers unable to find a job because so many ***** teachers have all of the jobs locked up.
- skippy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1"Most of the parents seem to consider this free daycare."
It's not just your sister or Minneapolis. This is the case everywhere. - sbader, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1One of my co-workers said the exact same thing about teaching in public schools.
- rhysmd, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2students aren't getting compensated monetarily for it, it isn't a 'job', and often the tests teachers give student aren't standardized PoS
- positron, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3...and the number one reason why paying teachers for performance is a bad idea...
Survey says!: "Wait. You want me to actually earn my salary?" - bjkrautk, on 10/11/2007, -5/+5"2. Student Performance is a Poor Gauge"
Absolutely. I mean, these are teachers...why should they care if their students are actually learning anything?
"9. It Does Little for Students
Based on all of the evidence, it is hard to say that merit based pay is good for the vast majority of teachers. It is also hard to say that it is good for students. A study by the University of Florida showed that students who are taught by teachers participating in a merit pay program only scored one to two percentage points higher on standardized tests than other students."
So it works....but we still shouldn't do it???
Marked as lame. - willcooper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Teachers get a shorter work day (8-3) and only work about 9.5-10 months out of the year. They are easily able to take on a second job, which many do, especially in consulting or summer teaching. Most people aren't able to do that. When you look at what they get paid per hour based on how much they work, it is justified. Also add in the extra income they have the ability to make because of their schedules and they can do ok. Don't throw out the argument that they have to often work longer than the standard work day and take work home. So do most other people, they aren't special in that regard.
- willcooper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+010. There Has to Be a Better Way
Many of the individuals and organizations who oppose merit pay programs argue that a better way to reward teachers is to just pay everyone more.
That is crap. Simply paying teacher more is utterly stupid. Merely increasing their pay is not correlated to an increase in performance. At least make them work for it with merit based pay - rhysmd, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2Hey you go deal with unappreciative kids all day trying to help them out. I'll grant they aren't all there for the benefit of the kids, but perhaps merely to pay the mortgage, but let's have some respect for a pretty thankless but incredibly important profession
- cesig, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2When the students take the tests, they're testing their own performance. Teachers shouldn't be judged based on the grades of the students. As the article said: there are too many other factors involved to make it a reliable indicator of performance.
- rhysmd, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1Hey bud, it's called a synopsis, see it summerized the argument it was about to present. I doubt you would have even read it had it been a wall 'o text
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -7/+4Amazing logic....these are the same teachers that have used test scores to judge STUDENTS performance for YEARS! How frigg'n hypocritical!
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