Why Merit Pay Will Not Work!

http://www.edutopia.org/compensation-student-performance-fair-system


This article is basically once again another attempt for politicians to try and turn Education into a business. Guise it anyway you want, it has always been called "merit pay" and it always will. There are only about ten thousand reasons why this is wrong, but I will only focus on two.

First and foremost, education and "daily classroom" practices are so subjective in nature that just in that statement, blows the whole "business" bonus model right out of the water. Depending upon which "Site" based administrators you talk to...the gamet of what they think success is rambles as endlessly as our Rocky Mountain roads. Some will go to their deathbed warmly wrapped in the philosophy that the only way to improve test scores is good "old fashioned" drill and kill. In other words, kill all elective and enrichment classes and spend 8 hours a day on the basics. Others, who are logistically two miles down the road and in the same district will yell at the top of there lungs that "hands on" and applicable learning is and will always be one of our most important and the only true "formative" answer to keep many of our kids in school.

What if you are a hands on teacher at the first and a drill and kill teacher at the second?

I guess no merit pay for you.......Education is a collaborative effort to say the least. Students need a broadbased faculty with individual styles all directed toward the same goal, and there are many ways to attain those goals. We are not "widgets".

You want to monaterly reward us.......hell yes......go evenly across the board on every Unified District Salary schedule with an amount that reflects our education, responisibilty, and creativity.

Now that would be a fair start.