Teachers: Should you be paid based on performance?

klibbericious wrote:

The whole question of performance-based pay is quite a red herring and rather moronic obsession here in the U. S. The real problem is in attracting greater educated and gifted teachers from the beginning of their careers. Do doctors have a performance based pay? Well..no, unless you include the level of prestige/pay levels of the hospitals they are hired by. Yet if they end up doing a double breast implant on a man with a broken arm it is suffice to say that they will be ousted due to their performaance.Good quality is of the essence right from the get-go in the medical field..why not education?

Would you see certain doctors put away in a union's "rubber room" where they can play cards all day with other doctors that are effectively useless and even dangerous to their patients(i.e. students) well being?... No!.. you don't have this with the medical community but yet you have it everywhere within the educational institutions of the country.

If you are an experienced educator with deep qualifications and smarts you will be probably working at a lucrative prep school somewhere already. THERE is already performance based pay. We must ask instead, why is it that the teachers coming into the public system are already largely set up for failure. There are GOOD teachers but they are doing this in spite of a system that works against them. There are so many poor classrooms out there because the average person doesn't give a sh'' about the society as a whole and is only concerned about their own well-being. Thats why there is not a big fight for more quality in education, and it is the same reason parents/larger public are quick to pile the blame on other's (i.e.: teachers). If people want more accountability in their child's upbringing they can begin by pointing the fingers...at.......themselves. the attitudes are already starting to change though because when you have an underclass that grows too big you begin to understand that a quality education secures a safe society as well as a smart one.

I have taught in Hong Kong for the past 7 years in their public school system after leaving back home. Believe me the average kid in the lower level schools have parents that tell their children to always respect the teachers and everything they say to a nauseating degree. It is afterall a confucian background. But on some level it works . I am paid over 100 grand a year US after tax and work with consumate professional that put me to shame in terms of dedication . Hong Kong is ranked #1-#3 on math /literacy scores in the worlsd consistantly. Not ONLY because of the schools. Its just the family takes education seriously. My 2 ..maybe 3 cents

Think about this, please wrote:

I’ve taught and tutored at levels from junior high to upper-tier undergrad at R1 schools in multiple disciplines (STEM and humanities, … you probably don’t want to know).

I live in a wealthy school district that performs (choose your metric) in the 99th percentile of districts nationwide.

Our teachers are basically fine, but the students perform well in line with what you’d expect according to demographic factors. So what are the teachers actually earning?

In contrast, I know teachers who work in low performing districts who do what I consider to be absolutely heroic work. Some of the parents there are great. Many, many others are totally disengaged. Still others lash out at the prospect of the homework being an expected part of the experience. Outcomes, overall, are poor. If you want to put that on the teachers, I question your education, intelligence, and integrity.