Why should we/ shouldnt we have performance pay for teachers?

Answer 1

As much as we might like to reward a teacher for doing an excellent job, the concept of performance pay is not truly feasible. A teacher is given a class list at the beginning of the year that is assembled by either a principal or a committee. What could you possibly base the performance pay on? Test scores or improvement? Would a class with special education students be assessed differently? The problem is that the system could be abused very easily, a principal could "stack" a class for a teacher they didn't like with a group of students marked as poor performers (which already occurs for removal of tenured teachers). The idea of rewarding excellent teachers is great, but bonuses won't work.

Answer 2

There are too many variables that a teacher can not control. Previous education, readiness, home environment, turn over... In other words if every teacher could receive a class where all the students are reading at grade level, where they have support at home, access to technology, who stay at the same school for the whole year...then it would be a great idea to have a performance pay for teachers\. Because if they don't do well it's because the teacher did not do his/her job.

In the other hand that it's not reality, you get students that are non readers even on higher grades, who have huge learning gaps, who constantly move from schools, with parents who doesn't support him academically, no access to a computer, who struggles been a second language learner. Even the best teacher of the world may not be able to move up some of this students, they are way too behind to catch up years of education in 1. For a teacher who works very hard the whole year...will be unfair that she won't get a performance pay because these students won't pass the test, even when she helped them to improve and build up on the skills they had, but not enough to pass.

A performance pay based on improvement would be great, but not for scores. Every teacher should be able to help his/her students improve academically.

Answer 3

The problem is that you don't want your best teachers, the ones who can teach anything to anyone, always with the best students- the students who can learn from anyone, because then your worst teachers are with the worst students and they'll only become worser together.

Great teachers should be rewarded for challenges (as they are in many school districts) and encouraged to work with students who perform poorly... that's where they can do the most good. And almost always when working with students who perform poorly, you're not going to override a life of abuse and poor family life in one semester so they perform just like your students who grew up with a computer, but you can change the direction of their lives and give them focus and hope- but this doesn't show up on performance scores.. so it's best- I think over all, to just say all teaching is the same and let everybody feel without restriction when choosing who to teach.

Answer 4

I go back and forth on this topic. Since the test results are out of the teacher's control, the teacher should not be penalized if kids don;t do well IF the teacher has done everything possible to prepare the kids. Some kids are just not all that bright, and no amount of teaching will get things through to them
On the other hand, there are way too many teachers who think that the classroom is the place for them to impose their views on a captive audience, or a place to sit until retirement, or who are not qualified to be there. Those people should not get the full union raise.
But let's not get started on teachers' unions!

Answer 5

That is a simplistic solution to a complicated situation. How do you judge performance? If a class of bright students does well on their test, does that mean their teacher necessarily did well teaching them? Or if a class of slow learners managed to get a bare passing grade, does that mean their teacher was slack?
There are too many factors involved, including how many 'problem kids' are in the class (and most classrooms these days have problem kids, with problems ranging from mental deficiencies to psychological problems, drug usage etc.etc.etc.) how many kids are in the class, what kind of facilities does the school have (a rural one-room school can't be judged against a modern high school with all amenities and modern facilities, teaching aids etc.) plus the experience of the teacher, the education the teacher has received, etc.etc.etc.

Answer 6

Performance pay works great in industry, but not in education. In industry, everything is very competitive. But education is not and should not be competitive - it needs to be cooperative. To my knowledge there are limited studies on this, but I've heard of at least one study that shows that students learn better where teachers work together to improve their entire school versus working to only improve their student's test scores for merit pay.

Answer 7

i agree there should be some way to renumerate teachers for a job well done, but how on earth do you measure it, simply looking at a schools results on standardised testing does not consider the community within which they work, good results are easier at schools that are not in a socially disadvantaged area, many brilliant teachers would have difficulty proving the value of what they do, as it so much more than test results.

Answer 8

We SHOULDN'T if it's based only on if your students meet a certain requirement that doesn't take into account the levels of the students. For instance, my classes consist of 3 regular and one advanced group. My colleage has 2 regular and 2 advanced. Her scores will almost certainly be better than mine, and it's because she has more advanced students.

If it were based on growth from August to May, then it might work.