[They would be wise to help their children and themselves by leaving the responsibility of teaching math, science, art, writing, history, geography and other subjects to those who are knowledgeable, trained and motivated to do the best job possible.]
The idea that union teachers are "motivated to do the best job possible" is ludicrous. The teacher who starts their career full of ambition and talent and genuinely works hard to do the best job possible can see that other teachers who are mediocre, or even incompetent, are getting paid the exact same amount of money as they are, and no amount of caring or talent or hard work is going to earn them a dime more than a teacher who doesn't care, or is incompetent or lazy.
Ask yourself if you would continue to "do the best job possible" year after year under these conditions.
Only when public school teachers get paid according to their abilities and accomplishments (like in a real job) will we see better results from public schools.
"The idea that union teachers are "motivated to do the best job possible" is ludicrous."
My wife used to be one of those union teachers. And, while she was, in fact, highly motivated, most of the rest of the teachers she knew were an embarrassment. Her local "union leader" insisted that she and the rest of the "teachers" exit the school at the end of the day at the exact moment they were allowed by their contract. The union also told her and the rest of the teachers not to provide children extra help after school, because their contract didn't specifically provide money for that service.
After her first year she quit. Our two children have never set a foot inside a public school classroom, and they never will.
Easy to say--hard to do. There are too many factors. If a teacher has all low kids and makes wonderful progress with them, but still gets lower test scores with some teacher who works with higher students and gets higher test scores, which one should be paid higher? There's a lot of subjective things to consider too. A teacher who works really well with parents may not have things reflected in a quantitative way. Sometimes it is things like that that REALLY count.
With the current climate of encouraging disrespect towards teachers, it seems that one's idea of merit pay wouldn't be any more, probably less, than I make now (which is okay--not minimum wage--but not a whole lot either).
I love being a teacher and wouldn't trade it for anything. We have been in school two weeks and I already have a myriad of stories to tell. I love working with the students and parents and seeing the progress of my little first graders. Seeing those little eyes light up is wonderful as it is when the parents get excited that their children are learning too. So in a way, I receive a lot of "merit" pay, in fact more than any amount anyone can give. For such is priceless, and you can't put a measure on that.