Merit Pay For Teachers And Teachers

Teachers should be paid more because “They work outside of the classroom” (Snyder). They have to work on lesson plans, grade their assignment, tests, and quizzes (Snyder). In 5 Reasons Why Teachers Need To Get Paid More, it says, “If you take into account the average teacher’s salary and the hours they spend at work, they could probably make more money being an hourly wage employee.” (Snyder). They should be getting paid more because they do not get paid enough with how much they do outside of work to be able to do what they do in the classroom. Teachers work very hard for what they do and to get everything done.

One of the main issues with merit pay for teachers is found in the manner in which it is measured. Most of the new performances pay laws and union contracts measure “effectiveness,” at least in part, by looking at the students’ test scores from one year to the next. One test score cannot paint a full picture of a student's accomplishment. Teachers unions have historically opposed merit pay, arguing that test scores are not an accurate measure of student achievement (Turner, 2010, para 15). Most teachers will report that a test will only show part of the picture. Standardized tests do not reflect life lessons, effective citizen traits, or character building traits that were taught that year. All of these traits thrive in an effective teacher’s curriculum.

     High school teachers’ average salary varies across the world. The United States is said to be one of the richest countries in the world, yet our teachers are being paid one of the lowest amounts. The Education Intelligence Agency, author of the article “Ohio Teacher Overcomes Union’s Tolerance” published an International Teacher Salary Report ranking the fifty states by “how much the average salary exceeded per capita personal income.” According to the Education Intelligence Agency Ohio’s percentage rate is only fifty- five point one percent. According to the Education Intelligence Agency the lowest state percentage is in South Dakota at twenty- three point six percent and the highest state percentage is

The United States used to be ranked higher amongst other countries when came to education. People came from all over the world to study here. Unfortunately, for the past years it have been ranked in the twenties amongst other countries based on standardized testing. Now its time to revamp our education system, but the question is where we should we look. Based on student performance, the only countries that have proven that most components of their system works is Finland and Korea; Finland being ranked one and Korea ranked two. In order for the U.S. education system to move in a positive direction we must make significant changes in the structure of our system. First we need to raise the qualifications for becoming a teacher because in some states you don’t even have to attend and educational school; all you have to do is pass a test. Secondly, we need to expand the time of school so that teachers have more time to teach the kids and the students can have more interaction with the teachers. Although this is where we need to look, we don’t need to adopt their entire system.

The problem with Karmanos’ idea is that there’s no provision for merit pay in Michigan, lousy teachers and great teachers make the same as long as they have equal seniority and education. That’s a recipe for mediocrity in any industry. Teacher quality won’t significantly improve until pay is linked directly to performance.

American colleges and universities employ an impressive number of people in a wide-range of occupations. While universities have a number of goals and interests, the general assumption among most individuals is that universities have the sole purpose of teaching students and preparing them for success in the world. Given this line of thinking, one would be led to believe that professors and other academic instructors hold the majority of positions within an institution, but this would be incorrect. While the faculty do serve a critical function, their service to the students would not be possible without the various support services that exist throughout a college campus. To ensure these services are set up and provide the resources necessary to ensure the university is successful in its mission, colleges require a large number of employees, all working under unique job titles and classifications, to take on the responsibilities that come with working in an industry that generated more than $124 billion in 2001 alone (Lowenstein, 2001).

Teacher compensation is one of many hot button issues in the race for K-12 public education reform in America. Google (2015), defines compensation as simply the money received by an employee from an employer as a salary or wages (Google). This definition is perhaps the simplest to understand, but fails to truly articulate the complex meaning of compensation. Most school divisions include salary, extra pay, benefits, and pension in their employee compensation package. Leonard Boswell (2015), former U.S. Representative, stated it best, when he said “The American Dream is one of success, home ownership, college education for one’s children, and have a secure job to provide these and other goals” (Brainy Quotes, n.d.). The American dream Boswell spoke of cannot be achieved through meager means, the question then is “Do the very people who help facilitate this dream for the country’s youth, deserve to achieve the dream as well?”

Merit Pay is a topic of investigation because even though it rewards great teachers many lawmakers, educators, and teacher’s union are opposed to it.

Those who are in favor of teacher merit pay systems feel as though the use of this system can eliminate the possibility of seniority outweighing high performance. They believe that those teachers in merit pay systems would be made to perform better in the classroom and demonstrate great teaching skills. Although there is some truth to this idea, it should not be accepted in the argument of teacher merit pay. In the Christian Science Monitor Reg Weaver stated merit pay systems would warrant “an adherence to some type of evaluative standard “ This means that teacher evaluations would consists mainly of the scores from

A. Current Issues: Teacher Merit Pay: States were asked by the U.S. Department of Education in their 2010 application for Race to the Top monies to include proposals for implementing teacher merit pay based on classroom performance (Woessmann, 2011). Merit pay or performance-based pay is a bonus for teachers whose students show above average growth over a set period of time measured by many different standards that are picked by local and/or state districts. The hope is that teacher merit pay would have an immediate impact on student achievement. Teacher merit pay stirs an emotional response from teachers, politicians, and parents. President Barack Obama has called for a national effort to improve student achievement in the classroom and often

Are teachers doing their best to help students, should they even be paid? Teachers always a have a huge impact on people's future and life, for all the work they do for their students. Public school teachers get paid seventeen percent lower pay than a college teacher would.(Strauss 5). And most public school teachers work a second job to support themself and their family. The effects of strong teaching has a direct impact on the students, the quality of teaching, and the classroom’s environment.

In the article “Education at Crossroads part 2” Vicki Viotti discusses the underfunding for schools statewide and teacher evaluations. “Our schools are creating a very different system, one system for rich children and one system for poor or middle-class children”(Viotti pg.2 par.2). Private schools spend an average of $15,000 to $25,000 per student, while the rate for public schools is much lower- $11,800 per student. This is a big issue with the new president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, Corey Rosenlee, who ran for president because of the amount of inequality he saw in the school system. Another issue Rosenlee wishes to render is teacher evaluations. “45 percent of a teacher evaluation for some teachers is based on student learning

Of course, there are benefits to teaching. For one, there is no school during the summer; however, with such low pay rate many teachers, especially those attempting to support a family, must get a summer job which takes that advantage away. One of the downsides of merit pay bringing in more teachers is the same as mentioned early. There is no guarantee that one would in fact get the raise merit pay promises. As said before, there is no special skill required that one teacher may have that another could never gain, instead the idea is to grow in teachers the inherent desire to be the best that they can be, and if a young person entered the educational field with that goal in mind, there would be nothing stopping them from receiving a merit

As seen in the history of the merit pay system, one can assume the reasons that it is constantly reinvented and reattempted must be either vast or have far more benefits than downfalls. The affected parties involved in the merit system are parents, students, and teachers. For the parents, the benefits may include higher success rate for his or her student, a more involved teacher, and/or the ability to find the best teacher based education and environment into which to place their child. The student may experience more available assistance for his or her questions, as well as an overall better understanding of core subjects (math, reading,

“If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher”(A.PJ Abdul Kalam). Having people who are able to teach a new generation is a special skill that requires patience and knowledge.Having a teacher is different than having a good teacher because they might not be the best for studying a certain subject. So making an investment into better teachers and giving them better pay, making the young minds of the future better equipped for jobs and future situations that are of major importance, such as voting, taxes, and planning for their own lives. A good teacher helps students when they are stuck on something in order to get them up to speed with the class, and a teacher helps the class by making notes understandable, and figuring out the importance of the subject. Although if there is a raise in the pay for teachers the amount of competition would rise too.