It’s easy to say that teachers should get raises based on merit but probably not so easy to do. Would you base it on test scores? Or how the parents feel about the teacher, or the principal? Tests aren’t the most reliable way of measuring what kids are actually learning, and who wants to spend the whole year preparing for them?
Never mind the fact that local governments are trying to keep their expenditures low and it’s hard to get the basic 3 or 4 percent cost of living increases most unions get now.
Maybe teachers should recieve a cost of living increase yearly with additional raises for merit.

My job only gets the union raises and sometimes I find it frustrating that the lazy people who do nothing get the same raise I do, but at the moment I’m just glad I didn’t lose my job in the last budget negotiation. ( I work in NYC)

“At least in my state, the list of top performing districts on our state standardized test line up exactly with the wealthiest districts, and the teachers in those districts are likely not better than teachers in poor districts, they are just paid more and are teaching kids whose parents are generally more educated themselves and thus have a better knowledge of how to help their kids do well in school.”

The wealhty school districts do pay better. That means that they have more candidates applying for their jobs than other districts which means they can be choosier and get better teachers. Teachers are not interchangeable.

My district rarely hires anyone who hasn’t proved themselves to the district either through student teaching or long term subbing in district.

Oh and there is a process to remove bad tenured teachers, principals rarely use it though.

Lisa, once again you show that when you don’t have an argument for the topic at hand, you change the subject. When you address how objectively assessing merit is a problem for students and schools, then I will address you again.

Hm. Perhaps you didn’t understand that I *wasn’t* arguing in favor of testing as the sole means of assessing a teacher’s performance. Kudos to you for suggesting other means of teacher evaluation. Perhaps you have some ideas about assessing subjects other than English and Math. That’s what I mean by being “part of the solution.” Agreeing that the current method is not working and making an attempt to meet everyone’s rational needs.
I take it you’re an educator by profession, at least that’s my assumption from your comments. I sincerely hope you are less dickish toward students in delivery of your ideas.

Again, Scorpio, you don’t know what you are talking about. Teacher evaluation as it is practiced now is more than sufficient. Nothing I have suggested is new. Teachers are observed formally and informally in a regular basis using pre-determined rubrics which we of course are familiar with.

Every teacher, student and parent in the building knows who the problem teachers are. They can be removed, it simply requires that the principals go through a process which includes documentation and opportunities for remediation. Most principals refuse to do this because they have to cross their t’s and dot their i’s. Believe me, the rest of the staff wants these teachers gone as much as, if not more so, than anyone.

As for merit pay (the topic at hand), unions are adamantly opposed to it with good reason. Merit pay will be used as an excuse to cut or not increase our base pay while increasing responsibilities and then the merit pay will be taken away.

Scorpio: I wouldn’t worry too much about your incomplete sentence, considering Lisa’s apostrophe (mis)use in the following sentence, from her post above: “Did you know that school’s are assessed on how many of their student’s take the standardized test?” I’m just hoping that Lisa doesn’t teach English.

I too would be interested in sound ways to assess who does or doesn’t deserve merit pay. It seems like someone or some organization “out there” has to have some tool with which to do this, right? I completely sympathize with the “older teachers costing more and so are targeted for lay-offs” reason for why little-to-no job security is a bad thing. But as you say, M_S, in what other job does one not have to meet certain expectations to retain the job? I understand why unions exist, but the teachers union is way too powerful.

ChiLaura,

Yes, there are tools out there to assess teachers. They are used across the country every day. And yes, if we don’t meet certain expectations, we lose our jobs. Just because you don’t know what those criteria are does not mean they do not exist.

Lisa, I’ve had plenty of shitty, shitty teachers during my school years. And, this may be hard for you to believe, but many of these bad ones were older, they had put in their time and essentially couldn’t be fired. Or, who knows, maybe the administration was just too lazy to jump thru all the hoops to do it, but I think that that theory in itself may indicate that there are too many hoops to getting rid of bad teachers. I attended a middle- to lower-middle class school district, so we weren’t attracting the cream of the crop by any means. I’d like to think, though, that we deserved at least reasonably competent teachers, and I’d say that a full 30% of my teachers phoned it in in my high school. Elementary teachers were better. Just because there are criteria in place doesn’t mean that administrations use them. And just because I can’t name for you, dear teacher, a specific criteria, doesn’t mean that I can’t spot a shitty teacher who should be losing his or her job or be forced to improve. Granted, this experience is anecdotal, but I’d be surprised if it’s not at least somewhat typical.

GP: What do you consider to be poorly paid? I know that teachers in public schools can pull in decent amounts of money, especially after being on the job for several years. They can afford decent houses and their spouses don’t necessarily have to work. Granted, income varies according to school district, and there might be many teachers who are indeed poorly paid. However, those I know of aren’t, in fact, and they lead decent middle-class lives. I’m really curious as to what your definition of “poorly paid” is. Plus, I know that teachers work extraordinarly hard during the school year, and many are required to do certain things during the summers, but, for the most part, teachers DO have summers off. How many other jobs get that benefit? Please note that I’m not saying that teachers are paid too much, or that “they should be happy for what they get,” but I don’t know that I’d argue that they should be paid as much as doctors or CEO’s or college professors, for example.

Well, Lisa, if you are an educator, you are doing an abysmal job explaining your point of view. What good are your yearly assessments if the principals aren’t doing their jobs and getting rid of the bad teachers? You’ve made exactly that point, quite emphatically, I might add. Then you drag NCLB into the discussion, which no one was talking about. So if the principals won’t get rid of the bad teachers because of the paperwork, what are your suggestions? So far, it seems to be more of the same crap that IS NOT WORKING… according to YOU! If my logic is circular, I’m going to have to take your word for it, as you are not only the expert in education, but also circular logic! So go rap your own knuckles on that one, ’cause I’m not hearing it. Everyone has to take responsibility for the job they do.

It is the administrators you need to address, not the teachers

GP, You mean the state where the governor “went hiking on the Appalachian trail” and had to be forced to accept stimulus money slated for education? Yeah, I think it’s that one. Maybe some people’s expectations are too high, but your expectations of the job that teachers do is pretty low. No wonder SC ranks last in the country for education.

Mistress Scorpio, although I usually agree with your comments, I think you are mistaken when you say that teachers want to get paid without any responsibility for how we do our jobs. Evaluations are routinely conducted, and I would agree that teachers need to be held to high standards by principals. I don’t think merit pay is a solution to anything, though. It really is more difficult to evaluate performance in teaching than it is to evaluate performance in many other fields. When I taught in Philadelphia, I was friends with a very experienced, very talented teacher. The principal routinely assigned children with the most serious problems to her room because she was such a strong teacher. So this woman had up to 34 children (1st grade) in her room each year. Many of these children were born to mothers who had no prenatal care, and some of their mothers even abused substances while pregnant. Many of the children were then not held much or spoken to as babies. Many never received adequate nutrition or medical care. The majority of the children at this school watched hours and hours of tv from infancy on, and many were never or rarely read to by an adult. Then, when the children reach age 6, this wonderful teacher would achieve amazing things with them. The problem is, they will still always appear to be making little or no progress when measured by any evaluation that might be used to see how well they or the teacher is preforming. Many of them are also in school for the first time in 1st grade, so what measure is there to show how well my friend is doing with them? How can their progress be measured? All the school system and the state know is that the children in this teacher’s class are testing (both on standardized tests and in less formal evaluations) WELL below what is expected in 1st grade. I am just using this teacher as an example because she was so very brilliant and dedicated, but we all had plenty of children in our classes that had significant obstacles to overcome (such as abuse and neglect).

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