Comments on: God, Save Us from Merit Pay for Teachers!

By: Hal

Hal — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:26:10 +0000

The funny thing is, I disagree with your main point and agree with everything else! I totally agree that NCLB and its ridiculous emphasis on standardized testing are a total mistake. But why can’t good teachers be rewarded? I work for a big engineering firm. Every year my boss has a pot of money that goes towards raises. He ranks his employees and decides who gets a bigger than median raise and who gets a smaller one. Totally subjective? Sure, but if there’s an employee in the office who busts her ass and works long hours and weekends and takes the tough assignments, the boss knows this and rewards her! If the principal is really as bad as “Joyful Alternative” says, fire the principal!

By: On Merit « Professor Zero

On Merit « Professor Zero — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:07:15 +0000

This post is brilliant. I would go on about why except that I must now figure out how to teach some basic material to some college students who due to NCLB, teacher merit pay, and who knows what else are now totally focused on getting points, an activity which they consider to be utterly divorced from and even antithetical to learning material.

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By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:17:04 +0000

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article God, Save Us from Merit Pay for Teachers!, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.

By: Joyful Alternative

Joyful Alternative — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:05:54 +0000

Another unacceptable aspect of “merit pay” is who judges “merit.” In most such plans, the principal judges teachers’ merit. And who’s the principal? Usually a gym teacher or coach who went to night school, who, at best, judges merit on how quiet and orderly the classroom it.

I rest my case.