Is Merit Pay a Good Idea for Teachers?

No, no and no! Because there are too many factors which a teacher can't control: the econony, familiy situations, death (of a student, or student's family member, for example), the weather (they are NOT cooling our rooms as much now to save money and in Arizona that can be devastating during standardized testing time), having a main-streamed yet challenged student (who brings down class averages) or having an especially difficult class. Not to mention personal challenges the teacher might be going through. No one, no where has addressed these issues when discussing merit pay. We all know teachers who have encountered these factors and he or she has no control whatsoever over them. Is that fair? It is the terrible, awful, no-good, very bad (to borrow from Judith Vorst) situation that is like keeping the whole class in from recess (unfair) or the unbelievably stupid "rewarding" of the students with trinkets, food or candy (see Alfie Kahn's brilliant, Punished by Rewards.)


It sounds easy; pay the "good" teachers. Yet the good teachers will tell you that some years a class does surprisingly well on standardized tests and no one seems to know why. Was it the lack of the above mentioned factors? Yes, sometimes, and no, sometimes. Teaching is as much art as it is science. (Invariable some expert will assign a reason, when it is simply inexplicable.)


Having taught for over thirty-one years I can tell you that I have seen it all. I have seen every half-baked fad that comes out of a big university be the latest and greatest and it seems to work, only to fall out of favor. Usually the reason is that teachers weren't following the program directly. Remember the "open classroom"? Few do, thank goodness.


Are there things that are low-cost and no cost that make for good teaching and self-motivation among students? You bet. Ask us old-timers why we are still here. Ask why we still love teaching?


The greatest compliment I ever got was when a student asked if I'd still teach if I won a million dollars. I didn't get a chance to answer because another student answered for me. "Yes, she would," he answered, " 'cause she loves to teach." That is real merit pay.