Benefits Of Merit Pay System

I respect your opinions on teacher tenure and merit pay. However, teacher tenure is not always a good thing. Yes, job security is important but sometimes teachers will not put in the effort needed to be successful teachers because they know they will not lose their jobs. It is almost impossible to fire teachers with tenure and sometimes those teachers should be fired. As teachers we should always strive to be the best for our students but it is human nature to cut corners or slack off if we feel we can get away with it. Tenure makes it possible for teachers to feel secure enough to slack off or cut corners.

In the early 1980s, when A Nation at Risk warned citizens with the prospect of "a rising tide of mediocrity" threatening to overwhelm U.S. schools, President Reagan reestablished trials with performance-based pay, with equally negative effects. Some schools experimented through the late 1980s with inducement programs based on merit, administration by aims, and career-ladder or differentiated staffing tactics. Few such trials had run smoothly for long. Another set of experiments emerged in the 1990s, wherein most were also based on career ladders, teacher expertise and knowledge, or differentiated

Some ways seen by the NCEE as possibilities to do this was to have salaries that were professionally competitive and performance-based. Teachers should be able to show competency in academic discipline.

First, Merit Pay for teachers is unaffordable. It is extremely expensive to implement a performance based compensation system (Admin, 2000.) In some districts, there is not enough money in the budget to buy paper, how can you justify teachers' performance based compensation when there is not even enough money to buy paper? (Dunstan, 2005, Pg.7.) There will never be enough money in the merit pot to make it worthwhile (Arthur, 2017.) If spending needs to be cut, merit pay increases will never be (Arthur, 2017.) Providing the mentoring and evaluation systems that a comprehensive merit pay system would be a

Over the last two centuries research shows varying degrees of initiation of merit pay. The 21st century has the pendulum swaying back toward the idea of finding a way to incent teachers for student achievement. Gratz ( 2005) discusses merit pay and performance pay being used synonymously and over a long period of

question that is posited, how bias is this system when it comes to teachers who work in poverty

In objection to this factor in the merit pay system, some wonder if teachers will not try at all. Instead, concerned with how money is distributed, teachers assume that they will never be “good” enough to inherit the pay. The amount of money depends on the school board which is often influenced by either the state or private tuition payers and spread amongst teachers. Therefore, the idea that only one teacher gets all the money is often not correct. However, even if the school gives all the money to one teacher, the idea is not that teachers are burdened by the need to exemplify the desired characteristics; instead, the hope is that their very best come through in the classroom. This means that not every teacher is working harder than he or

There is little research available proving the merit base pay works for teachers. In addition to no evidence of the effectiveness, paying teachers based on performance can burden

Often when merit pay is discussed, the concept of performance for pay arises. Both terms are used interchangeably, but are not the same terms. For clarification, Ornstein, Levine, Gutek, and Vocke (2017) state that “merit pay is a plan that rewards teachers partially or primarily on the basis of performance of objective standards and performance pay is a compensation plan that offers financial incentives for teachers who can demonstrate that their performance enhances student academic achievement (p. 34). Since the beginning of merit pay, critics and advocates have disagreed on the benefits of merit pay. As a matter of fact, Martin and Loomis (2013) revealed that critics of the merit system expect that it is unrealistic to build up a

Why take a job that barely makes ends meet? Statistics show that 81% of the world’s teachers are paid more than teachers in the United States (Rampell par.2). Teachers in the United States are also paid less than their peers, other professionals earning college degrees, and even some jobs that do not require a college education. Our teachers are the primary role models for the youth in our country that will one day become our nation’s leaders. An increase in teacher pay will attract higher quality teachers and improve the education system in the US as a result.

Consideration has to be made when providing reward to teachers in a similar situation in comparison to the one being rewarded. The “fairness” aspect of the theory explains why some teachers reduce effort causing performance to

The most important objective of performance-based pay according to some analysts is to enhance student performance Harvey-Beavis (2003). Odden (2000b) for instance, debates a fundamental link between the value of teaching and the degree of student outcomes, implying that any technique that grows the quality of teachers should automatically enhance student outcomes. This is achieved by presenting unbiased standards which can be used to regulate whether

The controversy of the merit pay system has been a highly contentious discussion in the field of education, most notably in my school district. As stated in the Education Commission of the United States, merit pay is pay for performance where a teacher’s compensation is tied to the performance in the classroom (2010). While merit pay for classroom teachers has been around for decades, it is increasingly becoming an issue around the country. As seen in my district, the issue has become a non-negotiable topic as the district is negotiating a new contract with the teacher’s union. The district’s proposal to include it in the new contract in order to improve student outcomes, attract new, highly qualified teachers to the district, and retain the proficient teachers already employed in the schools. The political influence increased when President Barack Obama introduced the Race to the Top Initiative. As stated in Howell & Magazinnik, the Race to the Top Initiative was created to stimulate the adoption of education reforms in the state governments of education (2017). The debate has been ongoing surrounding the pros and cons of merit pay with both supporters and opposition. The merit pay system will continue to have legal implications for school leaders as it impacts the rights of teachers, but the impact on student achievement. I support merit pay as it is prescribed to tie teacher performance to pay increases.

Teaching is a designed for incoming learners to create an in-depth relationship between the teacher and the student according to H. C. Morrison. Teachers are people who decide to teach students, as a career. There is no such thing as a bad teacher, just poor quality teaching. So why are teachers so resentful with their job if they chose that job to begin with? There can be various factors that contribute to the lack of motivation that teachers may have. To increase motivation an incentive was created and applied in the early 1980s (Podgursky pp. 3) which is the merit pay. There have been studies on whether this incentive is effective. Students around the country are still receiving a poor quality education. Being a future educator, I believe that there is a better way to raise pay for teachers because merit pay is unfair. Although some advocates for merit pay suggest that this method will give a goal for teachers to effectively teach, they have not considered various factors such as the students, their environment and what they learn apart from school lessons. Merit pay is an unfair incentive that will not consider what teachers teach apart from lesson plans, lead to a more strict approach a new curriculum, and create a hostile environment for teachers and their students.

Pay-for-performance has become acceptable to many organizations; however, it remains a hard sell in public school systems where teachers need to be paid based on the student’s test scores. For instance, in Minnesota, 60% of all pay increases are anchored in performance rather than the automatic rise in seniority. Similarly, Denver designed an incentive program that awards teachers with bonuses for excellent student performances and for receiving national teaching certificates. The idea of ensuring that more effective teachers are paid more than less effective teachers has been received ceremoniously in some states while the concept continues to generate controversies in other states. For instance, in Cincinnati, teachers