[geeks] One of the things I love about America

[wa2egp at att.net]

I think what is forgotten is that we are not dealing 
with a factory here.  In a factory, what I make is 
tested before it goes out the door.  If too many fail, I 
lose my job.  In schools, the product can decide if it 
wants to work or not.  Do I lose my job because too many 
students decide not to work?  Yet some standardized 
tests are used for that purpose.  That's the problem 
with merit pay.  Who decides and what standards do they 
use?
> On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 01:00:57PM -0500, Steven Hill wrote:
> > > Also, while I think that teachers deserve to be paid more than they are, I
> > > don't think that increasing pay will fix anything.  Maybe offering increased
> > > pay for better performance could be usefull though...  But that has it own
> > > sets of problems (how to measure performance, encourage fairness, etc).
> > 
> > Performance of what? or of whom?
> 
> Yes, that would be difficult to quantify.  The fairest way would be to do it
> district by district, and let them quantify it, and set the raise scale for 
> within the district.  State wide is obviously too wide for one performance
> standard in this case.
>  
> > Pupils? Teachers in schools with bad catchment areas would therefore
> > be paid less for dealing with disruptive and or pupils who are as
> > thick as pigshit.
> 
> Not if the school district set the scale.  And disruptive pupils are where 
> empowering the teachers to met out real punishments comes in.
> 
> -- 
> Joshua D. Boyd
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