More A's, More Pay

theodp writes "Little slashdotters may find teacher a tad more upset when they screw up on a test. The Dept. of Education just launched the first federal program that uses bonuses to motivate teachers who raise test scores in at-risk communities, awarding $42M this month to 16 school systems. Any fears that teachers might cook the books to score a typical $5,000 payoff? Not to worry, says Chicago's school chief, there are statistical analyses in place that spot testing irregularities, presumably better at catching Cheaters than those used in the past."

Comments

Re:How about...

[planetmn]

We already are paying most public school teachers $50,000 and up for 2/3 year of work.

This is a lie that keeps getting repeated as fact. My wife, who, while following my moves, has worked in three different school districts. In each one, she was required to work for 10 months out of the year (between classroom instruction and required continuing education). In addition, her average day was 10 hours long. She works more hours in an average year than the average american worker. This also doesn't count the grading that goes on in the evenings and weekends.

We already provide some of the best health benefits out there.

While teachers generally do get good benefits, that's less and less true with the budget crises that have been hitting local communities. For instance, my employers health insurance is much better than the one offered through my wife's teacher's contract.

The unions that teachers belong to do not allow merit raises

This is a problem that needs to be addressed. I like Tim Pawlenty's idea in MN to create "super teachers". Basically these are teachers who perform well in the suburbs, move to teach in the inner cities, and if they still perform well and get the students to perform, they receive high pay (upwards of $100k). But standardized tests are not the way to judge a teacher's performance.

they do not allow the school to fire poor performing teachers

This is another lie that keeps getting repeated as fact. While it is not easy to fire poor performing teachers, it's possible, and done. What the unions require is that you can show the teacher is actually performing poorly. The problem is that parent's of C children, don't like that, and want there children to get A's. It's much easier to blame the teacher and urge the school board and local politicians to fire the teacher, than it is to accept the fact that junior isn't performing very well. My concern is that if the union wasn't there to help the teacher, that teachers would have to be even more careful about the children of the rich and powerful, and that's not a good thing.

School budgets are out of control, spending is through the roof.

But this spending is going towards testing and not towards attracting and keeping good teachers, and not towards supplies for the classroom (believe me, I have a huge file of receipts for items that my wife has bought for her classroom with our money).

substantially decrease State interference into the curriculum,

Exactly, education should be a local issue. The state and federal dept's of education should make sure that success stories are available to other districts to utilize.

and get rid of all of the staff that just loves throwing around money for magic beans.

I'm not sure if I'm inferring correctly, but the spending comes from the administration and school board, not the teachers.

-dave