Connecting Teachers’ Pay To Test Scores

By Author: 360 Education Solutions
Total Articles: 3
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It is not a secret that America's education system has been lacking within the past several years, but how can we fix it? The possibility of merit pay, also known as pay-for-performance, has been talked about immensely, but will it bring the best results? There is a lot of controversy over this issue because many people believe that there are still too many unanswered questions. Whether or not people agree with merit pay, it could potentially be used in every school throughout the United States.

Merit pay is a system that connects teachers' pay with student achievement. In this instance, student achievement is directly associated with standardized test scores. This means that teachers could earn a higher salary if his or her students' test scores were higher then everyone else's in the school. Merit pay also gives teachers the opportunity to become the "lead teacher", which is the highest paid teacher in the school, without having to invest 10 or 15 years in the school. There are many people who support both sides of this topic. On one hand, it allows underpaid teachers the opportunity to earn more money, but it also ...
... has the potential to create unwanted competition within the school.

There are several benefits to implementing pay-for-performance into our education system. First of all, schools that use this system will be able to attract quality teachers into their classrooms. Even districts with a lower economic status will be able to bring in superior teachers, because they will be able to offer them more money then before. Merit pay will also provide teachers with more motivation to stay in the teaching profession. Many novice teachers leave the line of work only after a few years because of the lack of opportunity; pay-for-performance would alleviate that problem. Also, this would help retain veteran teachers stay in the field longer. The pay system would also be able to bring new teachers into the field, which has been an issue for quite some time. Merit pay may be one factor needed in order to revive the education system.

There are also several negative effects that merit pay could have on our education system. Basing teachers' pay off of test scores alone will be too difficult to measure; therefore, the government would have to find a way to make it fair for everyone. The system would have to find a way how to reward teachers who do not teach subjects that are tested on such as history, technology and music. Also, teachers could turn the situation into a competition, which could hurt relationships between teachers in schools. Some people also believe that ethics could come into effect when it came time for students to take their tests. The biggest concern is that teachers will lose their passion for the occupation and begin to teach just for the pay check. All of these arguments are extremely valid, which is why this topic has become so controversial.

One vocal supporter of pay-to–perform is President Obama. The President has addressed this topic multiple times through his new education system reform agenda and the Race to the Top grant program. The Race to the Top program has specifically awarded millions of dollars in federal grants to states that passed laws executing the merit pay program. President Obama and his team believe that teachers' pay should be increased based on performance tests, in order to bring in more highly qualified teachers into the economic system. He stresses that even though teachers will receive an increase in pay for their performance, they will also be held more accountable for their students' success.
So what teachers deserve to be paid the most? As mentioned before it would be extremely difficult to measure teachers' pay just on test scores alone. Instead of only focusing on test scores, teachers should be assessed on level of accomplishment, responsibility and student achievement. The education system should not concentrate on bonuses, but it should completely reorganize teacher compensation. Teachers should move up the salary system through areas that actually improve teaching skills and student achievement such as experience, knowledge of the subject matter, skills and professional development. Programs on professional development are great for teachers to take what they learned and apply it to their classrooms and studies have shown that the more professional development courses a teacher takes, the better his or her students do on test scores. For more information on professional development courses visit www.360-edu.com. The highest paid teachers should be the ones who are the most well-rounded and truly help their students achieve a quality education.