Merit

Comments on a news story from Massachusetts; the governor of that state has a plan to use merit pay for teachers as a way of improving the efficiency of the schools. Of course that won’t work. Not unless he can guarantee each teacher will be given the same opportunity to succeed. The same quality of classroom and supplies, the same students, the same administrators…Please understand; I’m a big fan of merit pay. When I was a carpenter, a young carpenter, I used to work for “piece work” wages. The faster I worked, the more money I made. Simple merit pay. If I was better (faster) than Frank or Joe, I made more money. But, we were all given the same type of work to do. The materials were the same and so were the houses. If…there was any difference in the scope of the work or the quality of the materials; that quickly became a point of contention between us and the contractor. And that is exactly what will happen with merit pay for teachers. It certainly sounds fair, but as it is often said, “The devil is in the details”. And some teachers will fail because of those details. We would be putting the entire weight of the education process on the shoulders of the teacher. The school board, the parents and the administrators would have no responsibility. How fair is that?