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Merit pay for teachers a must
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You mean there is $20 million that could have been going for teacher salaries all along? Where have they been hiding it? Why have they been holding out?
Look, I'm the first one to say that the good teachers should get more pay. I work with a few that obviously chose the wrong profession. They are the large minority. I'd love to force them out the door instead of clean up the mess they make every year.
Merit pay won't do that. Some of these teachers are the "veteran" teachers. They teach the best kids due to seniority. Their test scores look great and on paper they are great teachers. However when you ask the students or parents they will tell you otherwise.
Merit pay will increase these kinds of problems. The veterans will take the easy classes with the brightest kids. The new teachers will be banished to teach the low level classes with the toughest kids, make less money than the veterans, and quit.
Utah doesn't need to be forcing more young teachers out the door. We need all the help we can get.
So where have they been hiding this money?
It needs to be developed in consultation with our teachers, administrators, parents and student and should reward teachers who are willing to mentor newer teachers, are willing to work in rural and inner-city schools that are struggling and are willing to take on additional assignments and roles outside the classroom in addition to receive more education and training in teaching methodology.
In this I agree with Barack Obama and disagree with John McCain whose view of what merit pay can be is limited. I believe the only reason teachers have been opposed to merit pay in the past is because of the motive behind it (conservatives).
It isn't intended to reward good teachers or improve teaching quality instead it's was intended to punish teachers who often work in difficult circumstances. Once they realize that merit-pay is in their best interest and provides a long-term career for them they will favor it.
This is why we must get away from the idea that there are "bad teachers" instead of teachers who haven't been taught, mentored and received the additional training they need to raise in their careers. It's time for merit pay!
Merit pay is a good idea in theory but it is too political in nature!
Can we apply this to CEO's too? Increase revenues, keep employees happy, keep the stock price steady, you get paid.
Lay off workers because you can't run the business well enough to make a profit without firing people, you get to be the first one to get the pinkslip.
On teachers, why do we pay them so little? You might think that the people entrusted with the scholastic health of our kids would be paid in a manner similar to the people who care for their physical health.
We are willing to pay doctors hundred of thousands a year, but teahers who ensure scholastic health and future we only pay $30-50,000???
If we want the best people as teachers, in our free market system, we must provide enough of a financial incentive for the smartest people to become teachers instead of Doctors or getting the MBA.
I think merit pay is a good idea, as long as the regulation of it is good. It will be important to remember that teachers do not have as much influence on kids as we think--most of the success of students comes from their parents and home life. But if we can keep that in mind and not attribute all student successes and failures to teachers, then maybe we can develop a process for evaluating which teachers really are very skilled in their craft, and reward them for their efforts.
Utah would do well not to be so cheap with its teachers. Forget Merit Pay until or unless the base pay is raised to a professional level. And for goodness sake lets require teachers who come into the system who are required to teach math to know math. Many teachers do, but too many teachers have weak math skills. A degree in math education is not an indication of a good math education. Require a degree in actual math.
I majored in Biology and took all of the same classes as the pre-med majors except for a few of the advanced anatomy classes. I definitely could make more money with my biology degree by working for the fed. govt.
After 16 years I still love to teach but often wonder what I got myself into financially...
This has to be one of the dumbest analogies I've ever seen. What's next, not paying prison guards at all because their charges are there involuntarily? I think a person's paycheck needs to be evaluated a little more rigorously than a seventh-grade gym grade.
It would be interesting. By the way don't give me, we'll draw out names, because the squeaky wheel parents won't tolerate that where their "special" children are concerned. Worst of all who gets the new untested teacher? I should have been fired that first year, but after making mistakes I feel I was successful in following years. The more years that I taught the fewer mistakes that I made, and I feel the wiser I became. There is more to this than simply evaluating teachers.
To GWB: The CEO has much greater incentive to perform well. Getting your head cut off with an inglorious premature end to your career, and far less compensation keeps those nasty CEO guys awake at night. You are hearing about the guys who "failed" and got publicly cashiered out.
Or is this just another hold-a-carrot-out-that-only-a-few-can-get trick to keep everyone else thinking that maybe they can get it too? Cause that's all that most merit pay plans have been in the past.
How about Carly Fiorina? She failed at Hewlett Packard and was eventually forced out by shareholders.
What does she get for her shame?
To be a lead Economic Advisor to John McCain.
"Unchartered" isn't a word I can find in any dictionary.
The fatal flaw of the perennial "merit pay" idea is that no one ever proposes a rational and fair method of determining "merit." What is "merit" in teaching? What are the criteria? Who decides? Administrators who are not competent to teach? Legislators? Newspaper editors? [The only people qualified to assess teachers are experienced teachers, and it will be a cold day in Hades when teachers are allowed to determine their own fates.]
If you truly believe merit pay is a good idea, I suggest you refund some of your salary to the Deseret News because this editorial gets an "F" from me.
Jud said in essence to give students a pre and a post test and base the teacher reward on improvement over the baseline. My colleague teaches severely disabled students and the progress is there, but at times minimal.Some students work all year to maintain skills due to seizures or degenerative conditions. In such a scenerio she would receive no "reward" despite her typical 55-60 hour work week. How fair is that?
I agree there needs to be reform but have yet to see a viable approach.
Pay based on performance is touchy-would we suggest we pay a doctor based on the results of a physical? If we are healthy he gets a fat bonus but if we are ill to any degree it is pro-rated based on the condidtion we have.
We teach all as they come-hungry,homeless, no English, abused and neglected, ready to learn, bright, delayed and ths list goes on.
How do we judge the quality of a teacher?
"How about Carly Fiorina? She failed at Hewlett Packard and was eventually forced out by shareholders.
What does she get for her shame?
To be a lead Economic Advisor to John McCain."
This was poor judgment on John McCain's part and if we combine it with him saying that he is not strong on the economy then we have all the evidence we need to know that he is unqualified to be President since he would appoint someone who was FIRED for INABILITY to do her job. They gave her over $20 million when they fired her as part of her severance packaged. I wish I would get that kind of severance package when I'm fired for being a complete failure like Carly.
You stated:" You mean there is $20 million that could have been going for teacher salaries all along? Where have they been hiding it? Why have they been holding out?"
The $20M came from the Utah State Office of Education's reserve account. The legislature reclaimed it to distribute for teacher compensation, rather than having the USOE and state board sit on it.
Teachers are not treated like other professions.
There should NOT be tenure.
(what is better motivation for doing you job well, or atleast not screwing up, than the threat of being fired, everyone else must deal with that possibility!)
There should BE bonuses for outstanding work.
And if it was privatized teachers could be making a lot more money!
Now that is real change, and not just lip flapping.
We already try and have them take the end of level science test without speaking english. Is it a wonder they typically score about 25%? You have a 1 out of 4 chance when there are four answers.
Then you have the 20% or so of the students that are so sick of ALL the testing that they make designs on their answer sheets. How much extra pay would that get me?
If parents and students don't care, ( a vast majority do but there are also some that don't) how do you penalize a teacher that is working hard and succeeding with the kids that want to work and learn but has no success with the slackers?
Amen Orem Parent!!!
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