Merit Pay

The Orange County Register ^ | June 30, 2005 | Aaron Hanscom, Ari Kaufman

[AaronH]

Revisiting the Merit Pay Issue

It has been over a month since our article in support of merit pay for teachers was published in The Orange County Register. (Here it is republished in Intellectual Conservative for those who don't want to register for OCR.) The article was not well-received by other teachers at our school, but a huge majority of readers believed it was an issue worth exploring.

Mark Hemingway presents a convincing case for merit pay in National Review Online today:

To the extent that underpaid teachers are a problem, it is for one reason and one reason only: teachers unions.

If teachers unions care about increasing pay for teachers, the solution would be simple. It’s called “merit pay,” or as it’s known in every other employment arena in the country, How The World Works. Unlike all jobs outside of government, if you’re a teacher, how good you are at your job is no indicator of how much money you’ll make.

This is because unions insist on uniform pay for all teachers regardless of ability. Teaching is not an assembly line where workers come in shifts and are interchangeable. It is a highly specialized profession that requires tremendous adaptability. And more than that, it is far too important a job to pretend that educators are all equal.

Be sure to read the entire thing. Merit pay really has the potential to turn around our dismal public education system.