Taylor Mali, an American slam poet and teacher, wrote a poem titled, “What Teachers Make”. In this poem, he rhythmically tells about other professions criticizing teachers based on their choice of occupation. While teachers will never earn six figure incomes, they make a difference. Teachers dedicate their lives to leading, inspiring, and educating future generations, all while earning meager pay. Though teachers form foundation of education, their pay does not accurately represent their skills. Using merit pay systems will properly assess how much a teacher should be paid, based on their teaching ability. For a teacher, work never ends. Early in the morning, teachers wake up and prepare for a long day. They arrive to school early to assist …show more content…
If the server does an excellent job in tending to customers by catering to their every need, the customer will leave a higher tip, as opposed to a server who completes the bare minimum. Poor servers will receive a lower tip. The tip represents the server’s skill and ability. Merit pay for teachers follows the same idea. A teacher who caters to every student’s need and completes exemplary work will receive a bonus similar to a server’s tips. The better the job a teacher does, the better bonus he or she will receive. On the other hand, if a teacher completes the bare minimum, mediocre work, he or she will receive a lower bonus or none at all. Susan Moore Johnson explains that school districts should give small incentives, comparable to tips, as small bonuses to teachers. Gary Ritter, a professor of Education Reform and Public Policy, proposes an idealistic way of rewarding these bonuses. School districts will reward core subject teachers up to $10,000 in bonuses per year, noncore subject teachers up to $6,000, and other staff, including teacher associates, up to $1,000 (Ritter). Teachers who transfer to hard-to-staff schools, teach subjects in which there are shortages, such as math, science, special education, and bilingual educaiton, and work longer days should be rewarded with these …show more content…
Some people believe merit pay creates competition and favoritism. They seem to think school systems will pay some teachers more than others and create a “battle” for money. In Merit Pay: Good for Teachers? By Gary Drevitch, one interviewee states, “I know it’s worked in some places, but I shudder at the idea of teachers being in competition with each other.” None of these problems will occur if school districts implement a successful, unbiased system. Another issue society presents when it comes to merit pay comprises of differentiating a “good” teacher from a “bad” teacher. School districts can easily evaluate a teacher’s ability to educate students by the work teachers put into helping students. Student’s reactions to a teacher’s class can also help evaluate teachers. More often than not, students will love a class where the teacher clearly demonstrates lessons, explain procedures, and adds elements of fun. On the other hand, students typically dislike classes where the teacher only comes in for a paycheck. This attitude is displayed by their lackadaisical teaching style. Other people argue that money should not be the reason why people go into teaching. Richard Barbieri, author of Merit Pay? argues that money is not an external motivator, but the substance of a teacher’s motivation. Financial incentives will cause employees to work harder
The first reason I agree with Matthew Miller’s “A Deal for Teachers”, is that something needs to be done about good teachers not being treated or paid right. I know many (in my opinion) great and intelligent teachers. They are working hard all the time to teach children everything they need to know. Meanwhile, they are getting paid the same as their coworkers who are doing nothing. In poor schools this might be even more important. In some cases, school might be the only place some children are getting taught important life skills, and their teachers might be the only good examples they have. I know a teacher who works in a poorer school. She’s told me about how hard it is to work at a poor school in general, with a lot of children who don’t respect teachers or adults and parents that also don’t respect the teachers. Couple that with low income and awful coworkers. If we keep giving our good teachers reason to leave by not treating them fairly, then we will never fix the problem of having so many bad teachers in our
With the low expectations of teachers, students are limited in their ability to learn. As discussed before, it is difficult to predict how well a teacher will do at their job before they begin working. This creates doubt when hiring anyone, and employers may not know if who they are hiring is the right choice. If teachers are judged by not only the basic requirements met, but also their interpersonal skills and how well they are able to teach in a positive manner, there will hopefully be less mediocre teachers hired. In the same way, both an advanced teacher and an average teacher are paid the same wages, which creates a flaw in education. Even more, there should not be average teachers in the workforce if all teachers are paid the same. Though this harms the advanced teachers, who deserve more than they earn, it also harms the students, as they are taught at a lower level by the inadequate teachers. Gladwell mentions these flaws in his article, but he also explains the traits good teachers should have, which brings a strive forward in this issue. Because of this, it is clear America must be more selective and strict when hiring
Barber calls the reader 's attention to the low salary of teachers and how their wages need to rise. Although many people know about the salary issue for teachers, they often overlook
"The Single Salary Schedule for Teachers in K-12 Public Schools." Department of Economics (2002): 1-18. Print.
Did you know that schools in some places are actually giving kids money for good grades? If schools wish students to be self-motivated and have a desire for learning because it’s valuable to them, then schools should not pay students for excellent grades. Paying students for good grades can lead to kids having pressure to earn good grades. In addition, the students who are payed will not succeed academically in the long run. Also, they are not self-motivated so when they are not getting paid they will stop trying. From pressuring to get good grades, not succeeding academically in the long run, and not having self-motivation, there are several negative effects of paying students for marvelous grades.
The oversite committee then evaluates the success of their money allocation and incentivize the success of the public school’s education. “Americans do not appear ready to pay the price.” (Barber, p. 215) Money is the most powerful motivator, and if the success of school districts reaps the benefits of more financial resource, educators will fight to be the best. This new desire to be the best, is possible with the equalization of opportunity from the allocation of funds to the poorer schools. The race to the top would already be won by the larger, richer, and more powerful school districts without those foundational funds. “Because we believe in profits, we are consummate salespersons and efficacious entrepreneurs.” (217) Barber’s essay supports the idea of incentivized results. Not only would districts compete with other schools, but their standards would be raised year after year in consequence to the oversite of the
They’re the one’s who wake up every morning just to teach us something new. Teachers perform endless gestures to make sure we digest what we need to learn...but get paid so little doing so. Although not all teachers are perfect, more times than not, a teacher is someone who helps change another’s life for the better. They work just as hard as we do, maybe even harder, and since it’s their job they should be paid well for it. “They spend hours outside of the classroom designing lessons and correcting your child's work.” In my opinion, if a teacher has been teaching and dedicating their time and effort into a school for a very long time, their pay check should show it. Jenny Davenport, a senior analyst states, “we pay for what we value, and if we value education, we should value educators.” It’s not fair when an educator remains loyal to a school and helps it become better everyday and gets paid the same as a teacher who has only been there for a short amount of time. Not to mention, teachers also stay after school allowing the students extra tutoring hours, with no pay. If they’re putting for their most effort, as they’re supposed to for their students, they should get paid correctly for
Teaching is one of the most well-known professions all around the world. However, it is also extremely underestimated, especially when it comes to teaching elementary school students. Jenny Peters, writer of the article Confessions of An Elementary School Teacher, observes that it is indeed a “challenging career” that in the end has “immeasurable rewards” (1). However, no matter what you have to do, it seems as though those rewards overrule anything and everything as long as your heart is in it, not only for the students, but for the drive to teach them and lead them to bigger and brighter futures.
Teacher merit based pay has become a growing interest amongst politicians for the past fifty years. According to Jane Lincove, author of Can Teacher Incentive Pay Improve Student Performance on Standardized Tests?, “a growing list of school districts and states have experimented with teacher incentive pay” due to pressures of high-stakes accountability (3). Texas began deliberations regarding incentive pay as early as the 1980s (Springer, p. viii) The miscarriages of early incentive pay programs helped formulate the most recent teacher incentive pay program in Texas, ensuring it would be adequately funded, provide teacher involvement in its design, reward educators for student performance
At the base of every profession lies the information and skills we learn from our teachers. Yet teachers get paid close to one hundred times less than the professional athletes used for entertainment. Teachers help kids and teens learn basic curriculum as well as important life skills they use throughout their lives. Without the knowledge a teacher gives us we lack good doctors, lawyers, government officials, engineers etc. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the average high school teacher makes about $57,200 annually, teachers deserve much more for the job they do. (“High School Teachers”)
It is no secret that college students pay absurd amounts of money in order to attend college and receive a college education. Thus, it would only make sense for students to receive this education from top professors who are experts in their field of study. In fact, in order to become a college professor, one must have the proper credentials to be considered for the position. Additionally, college professors receive their salaries which are based, among other considerations such as which school they work at, upon these credentials and average at about $68,000 per year. Finally, according to Christopher L. Brown and Stephen M. Kosovich, professors’ ratings greatly impact the enrollment in their courses (497). This means that in order to receive positive teaching reviews, they must do their part as a favorable professor. On the other hand, high school teachers are not held to this type of standard. High school students do not have to pay nearly as much as college students in order to attend their high schools. In fact, most high school students attend public high schools, which are free to attend. Although high school teachers are certified to teach, they are not necessarily experts in their field of study, like college professors are. Thus, they are not paid as much and their salaries average at around $55,000—$13,000 less than that of the average college professor. For these reasons, college professors are held to a higher standard than high school teachers, and therefore teach their students more effectively.
Teachers should be one of the most high paying job occupations available for providing the future generations with the tools they need to succeed. In Canada, teachers are paid at an average of $99,300, which is a main reason why Canada is no. 4 on the world education ranking system. The average teacher's salary in the United States is $56,000 which does not give teachers in this country a very good incentive to work. Some people think that “If you are a teacher, you are not doing it for the money”, Well if I had the salary enough to afford to pay off my student loans, own a nice house and drive a nice car, I would appreciate my job a little more, giving me more incentive to work harder. This can also lead into the topic of Core knowledge, the curriculum that nobody wants to learn or
There are many ways to compile data on a teacher and determine that person’s performance. Teacher performance can be based upon classroom observation, a teacher’s continuing development and education, and students’ standardized testing scores. The controversy centers around using student test scores to determine the performance of a teacher and thus her pay. Scott Andes, a research analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation voices the merits of performance based pay with his article “Getting Serious with Education: Why Can We Measure Students but Not Teachers?” High School English teachers, Jordan Kohanim and Ashley Ulrich vehemently state why there is no merit with performance based pay with their article, “No Merit to Merit Pay Arguments.” In each article both sides debate how performance based or merit pay will affect students, teachers, schools, and com...
Duke, Daniel L., ed. Incentive Pay and Career Ladders For Today's Teachers. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. 42-241. Grand Rapids Community College Database . Web. 6 Apr. 2014. .
We have to admit that humans often need incentives. For most people, money is a driving force which can inspire them to make progress (Barbieri, 52). If by performing better, you could earn more money, I think most people would gladly perform well and strive to achieve better results. Teachers are also human beings, and the vast majority of them would feel the same. Higher wages can increase the enthusiasm and motivation of teachers. At the same time, merit pay can improve teachers’ motivation, not only because of the money, but also because of a sense of accomplishment (Honawar and Olson, 26-27). When a teacher, through his or her own careful research of teaching strategies, passion, and devotion to teaching, help his or her students get better grades and is also rewarded by the schools, he or she will be filled with a sense of purpose. This will make that teacher know his or her effort is worth it, and in following lessons he or she would strive to expend even more energy and time to improving his or her teaching level and quality. Meanwhile, outstanding teachers will also become role models for other teachers who do not get bonuses. In this case, in a school, it will form a healthy competition among teachers. Everyone will be more diligent and strive to improve the level and quality of their