Obama and Arne Duncan continue to push the idea of merit pay, much to the consternation of progressive policy magazines.
"One of the major developments in education policy this year has been the Obama administration's continued, focused attention on the issue of merit pay, despite a lack of strong evidence linking such programs to increased student achievement."
Awesome.
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I read an article on the pros and cons of merit pay and there is nothing in the con section that is unique to public school teaching (at least from this article). Most businesses have some sort of merit pay system and although $ is a motivating factor for all, most people do what they do and it is very difficult to get them motivated (see it here all the time). At the very least merit pay would bring more good teachers into the system and reward the best ones enabling all of them to stay. I know your feelings about merit pay, Jim, but please add some details.
I don't know which details you'd like me to add, but I'll reply by saying that "merit pay" is just a small facet of the overall reform movement.
Specifically, I'd like to see pay increases for teachers be tied to some metric for teachers. At the moment, pay increases are basically for 1) experience and 2) increases in certification level (i.e., the utterly ridiculous Master's in the Art of Teaching.) These are the wrong things to incentivize.
You want to incentivize a wide variety of things, many of which can be mathematically measured. (BTW, I'm not saying this is easy, but it's better than nothing.) But test scores and the like can be quantified (and should be.) I really like the Michelle Rhee idea, where teachers trade their job security for much, much higher pay scales (>100K.)
Here's how I see the current system: average pay + high job security. Here's how I see the ideal system: moderate-to-high pay and average job security.
Much like the health care debate, the system is biased in terms of certain parties (doctors, insurers, whatever) and some have relatively little power (consumers, mostly.) The reason why teachers' unions are so opposed to change is that they are one of the folks with the most to lose and the very least to gain, while students have been on the losing end for quite some time.
I'd be willing to spot teachers much more independence/power in their classrooms, too, by the way (thus solving the autonomy issue in the linked article.)
Finally, I see "merit pay" as a nice, small way of seeing if President Obama is willing get a powerful Democratic special interest group to change. I seriously doubt that they will have to give up much (if anything), but they will have to signal the willingness to bargain. If not, then I think the reform movement won't get anywhere for the next 7 years.
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