Deal on Teacher Merit Pay May Sway National Debate

[free4440273]

"In a breakthrough likely to shift a fierce national debate over how teachers should be paid, Mayor Bloomberg and the city teachers union are moving forward with a plan to base salaries on student performance.

The plan is a major victory for Mr. Bloomberg, who made performance-based pay a top priority when he took over the public schools in 2002."

http://www.nysun.com/article/64769

 

[D-rock]

I could see potential problems with it because a lot more goes into how students perform than just the teachers. Some of them that are good could still be screwed over and want to go somewhere else to teach. A lot of them go into districts with a lot more money now.

 

[marquis2]

It's too open to abuse, a good idea in theory.There have been several attempts in the UK to reward classroom performance with extra pay;always the extra pay has been tied to an extra responsibility.

 

[DaNess23]

Problem is this, how are the students' performances judge? Is it based on standardize testing? Will teachers now be forced to teach to the tests due to money being invested to their school and school districts? If so, who makes the tests? Who decides what students should and should not know?

It opens up a huge can of worms we dont need to. I remember being in high school honors and being blatantly lied to about a test like this. "You need to do well because it will go on your transcripts, blah blah blah" when in reality it didn't nor did colleges even care about these tests. So why were we lied to? Because we were the "smart" ones. They needed us to take this seriously and to do well because money for the school was involved. Now, if they were just honest with us, I'm sure we all would have done our best anyway. The lying left a very bad taste in our mouths to say the least.

I'm all for teacher responsibility, of course. It's sad to go back to the same school, go see teachers that used to be so vibrant and enthusiastic when I had them, then just ten years later they become drones beaten down by the system.

The point is this: is this really how we want to go about things? All that will happen is that teachers, whether they want to or not, will be "persuaded" to teach only to the test. Again, who decides what's on that test anyway? And why do they get to decide what students should know?

Tricky situation indeed.

 

[senob44]

Sounds to me like teacher is going to "accidently" leave the answers to the test written on the board.

 

[allconfererence]

I am going to be a teacher in a few years, and honestly, you can't do it to teachers, and not do it to everyone else. Also, what happens when you are a second grade teacher, and you get your kids coming in for school, and 5 kids in your class don't know how to read.

This system would be impossible to do. Especially if its high school. If you inherit a honors class of kids that all got A's last semester, how could you go above and beyond? You cant. The minimum you could do is not fuck up.

 

[geraldhp42]

The union president, Randi Weingarten, who has staunchly opposed what she calls individual merit pay, said the plan is unlike any teacher pay schedule in America. She singled out the compensation committees, which will hand power over the policy to two members of the UFT as well as the principal and a person of the principal's choice, as particularly unique.

Within this lies the crux of the problem of education: the Teacher's Union.

Well, that and education shouldn't be politicalized.

 

[Nester6]

"In a breakthrough likely to shift a fierce national debate over how teachers should be paid, Mayor Bloomberg and the city teachers union are moving forward with a plan to base salaries on student performance.

The plan is a major victory for Mr. Bloomberg, who made performance-based pay a top priority when he took over the public schools in 2002."

http://www.nysun.com/article/64769

Although well intended, it would be a great opportunity for favortism once again. Believe me, the best teacher/politicians would always receive those pay incentives no matter how the students perform.

 

[marquis2]

It isn't the best teachers that get on. Those who are simply dedicated to the teaching side just get sidelined. The ones who get on are those who play the system, go on masses of courses and become well known, set initiatives in train which make more work for everybody else and then move on leaving them to it.