Guilford Considers Merit Pay for Teachers

not fair bad seeds shouldn't effect teacher pay weall know that bad seeds affect how well kids learn If you pay by performance kids that don't what to learn need to go to teachers that don't care about the pay.

Just An Educator

Judged:

Merit pay is one of those "hot button" topics in education today. While it seems like a good idea on the surface there are other considerations to be made. There are several other people in the life of a student that have an impact on learning. Curriculum coordinators, Instructional Technologists, Reading Specialists, all provide the classroom teacher some level of support with the success that their students achieve. Would these teachers also be subject to merit pay? What about subject areas that are not "tested" like Kindergarten-Second Grade, or PE/Art/Band/Music/Foreign Language Teachers. How would achievement be measured in these subject areas. Would these not be as important as those that have "required testing." Merit pay is a bad idea plain and simple. There are just too many factors that go into the successes and achievements of students. Until we have a system in place that does not rely on singular tests at the end of the year to measure student achievement, we need to all be weary of merit pay, no matter how anyone attempts to spin it into a good idea.

Susan

I hope this is not based on standardized tests. It already seems that the only thing teachers teach and students learn is how to take standardized tests. Teachers are not allowed to be creative.

Listener

Oh, my. This could discourage teachers from choosing to teach in the poorer schools.
Perhaps the schools can be divided up into "Merit Criteria Groups" so that a teacher's outcome in a very poor school is not unfairly compared to a a teacher's outcome in a very wealthy school.

rmatovcik

Yes they should be paid on their performance. That is how other companies work, why shouldn't they be the same. That also goes for
any gov't employee!!!

Michael

What would stop a teacher from being more lenient towards their students in an attempt to recieve more pay? Standards may lower. Work that would recieve a lower grade under normal circumstances may recieve a higher grade. Will the students take seperate performance tests or will the teachers pay rate be set from the student's overall grades?

liliy

no because it would be to much stress and expectation of students

John

Colfax, NC

Who decides if their performance merits their raise? Their colleagues?

DR D

Some teachers get all higher level, self motivated students.
Some teachers get students who are lower level. They don't even want to be in school. Often the "better" teachers work with the challenging students, because they are the only ones who can handle the stress. However, if you look at grades, the other teachers will have "better" results. Actually, the students wih the lower grades may have even dropped out without the influence of that good teacher. That never shows up when just looking at grades.

Justice

What's new. Test scores, test scores, test scores. It sickens me
to see teachers defined by this limited gauge. It doesn't matter though, the media will find another way to scapegoat teachers, even if they meet or exceed testing expectations. Besides. the government seldom pays out what they say they will.

Cindy Campbell

Asheboro, NC

Judged:

I think it is a great idea I would like to see all schools do this. You would see teachers try to help all the kids in there class and not just a few, The teachers would give more help to the kids who needed .Then this truly would be away for no child to be left behind.

Elaine- Lexington

Judged:

NO, I work for Davidson County Schools, not as a teacher but I see how hard they work to teach each day and what they have to go through. I see the students who are there because they have to, not because they want to and the problem they cause. The class scores they bring down by not doing anything and not allowing the teacher to teach sometime it's heart breaking and would be unfair to even the best teachers in any state.

Teacher

High Point, NC

As a teacher myself, more pay would be a wonderful thing but paying based on performance can be a tricky thing. Contributing a student's performance solely on the teaching ability (or lack of) of the teacher is more a notion of fantasy than reality. There are many contributing factors to whether a child is successful in school or not. One major factor is their background and home life. The school system keeps trying to come up with more and more incentives and programs to help boost the performance level of low-performing schools and students, but they have yet to come up with a way to positively address the many issues that go beyond a classroom that affect a student's academic performance. Look at the studies done on the impact that simply talking to your child on a regular basis has on their reading success. Many children barely see their parents, let alone talk to them. There are many teachers that I personally know that work in a high performing school but are not what I would consider a high performing teacher. Yet you look solely on the test results of a standardized test (that is a whole other soapbox I could step up on) to determine what merits success and what doesn't. Are they successful because of the teacher's ability or because they have (and have been given since childhood) the support and encouragement needed from home? If given another set of children with a far less supportive family and home life, you would see a big difference in the academic "success" of the students at the end of the year. Part of me wants to feel that paying teachers based on the performance of their students would directly reflect on their teaching ability (and for many it does), but the rational side of me feels that you would be paying the teacher based on the community and families they teach more than the teacher's true abilities.

btcoral

Winnsboro, SC

Judged:

Most all other careers pay for performance, I think it is about time to reward the teachers that make a difference in the classroom. Why provide a raise to a teacher that doesn't provide a valuable education to the future of our country.

Teacher

I have read the comments posted and agree with most of them. I especially like "Just an Educators" response. You do need to look at all the staff members in the school and how would you decide that the reading specialis who helped with a student not recieve money but the classroom teacher would. I think it is a bad idea and I do work at a mission possible school not for the extra money but because I feel that I make an impact with these students far more than just teaching them reading or math but also by teaching them how to cope in the world and in their situations. Being a highly qualified teacher is about more then raising test scores and achievement scores, it's about raising a child's self esteeem and thier ability to believe in their selves. Without confidence no student will achieve to their best ability. Good teachers instill this confidence. Can you measure that?? Teachers teach because we love kids and our job. Most knew before they accepted thier position that the money wasn't great. So, if some are changing their minds, well maybe they need to go into a new career.

2girlsmom

I think that if the school system goes to a performanced based pay system, it will just make it even more difficult to get good teachers at tough schools. The teachers will just go to the good schools where they have a lot of community and parent support and involvement and thus the children naturally do better. I think this will make the poor schools loose good teachers.

Teacher

High Point, NC

Cindy Campbell wrote:

I think it is a great idea I would like to see all schools do this. You would see teachers try to help all the kids in there class and not just a few, The teachers would give more help to the kids who needed .Then this truly would be away for no child to be left behind.

Teachers DO help all students in their class, not just the smart ones. Walk into most classrooms and you will see that the "smart" ones are actually the ones getting short-changed because we (teachers) have to give so much of our individual time for intervention and support to those students that are behind. Yet no matter how much extra support is given, it is still a struggle for many low performing students to make it to a level near their peers. When your class is made up of multiple students that are below grade level, it makes the job that much harder.

Dan

I think this is a terrible idea. If teachers were paid based on their students' performance, what would encourage the good teachers to work with struggling students or in schools with low academic performance. All the good teachers would want to take the jobs at schools that were already academically successful and had students that were already achieving at grade level or above.

2girlsmom