Argumentative Essay: Should Teachers Be Paid?

Teachers may be one of the most important influences on children and teenagers throughout their adolescent lives. They spend a large amount of time around their students, anywhere between six to eight hours a day, five days a week, 180 days per school year. However, even though they are such an important influence on adolescents, the average base salary of a teacher is $31,645 (“Teacher Education”). In an attempt to reward teachers, many states use a “merit pay” system to reward teachers who have higher test scores with their students. Teachers at Oak Grove Primary School received about $900 in merit pay, while librarians and counselors received about $600 (Ciurczak). Although teachers enrolled in incentivized pay programs may benefit from

However, the system can be perceived as unfair to teachers with special education students, defiant students, and students in low income neighborhoods. Certain merit pay systems also work to provide bonuses for non-educators, such as custodians, librarians, and security officers. For example, the Community High School District 128 of Lake County, Illinois, provided over $500,000 in bonuses to all varieties of employees, stating that “From a compensation philosophy standpoint, it's a team sport," said District 128 school board President Pat Groody. "We believe everyone matters, and that goes all the way to people working in our facilities to our best teachers. We really wanted to get people focused on the concept that performance matters (Rado).” Even though this is seen as a positive aspect of merit pay programs, it causes a lot of controversy amongst teachers and others, as because non-educators are not teachers, they do not face the hardships of teachers and therefore do not deserve to receive such merit payments. There are also better ways of rewarding teachers; as aforementioned, teachers feel more rewarded with time off or more time to do planning, as opposed to earning bonuses. The usage of extra pay perpetuates the animosity amongst teachers within a school or school district, and also tends to promote the undervaluing of teachers. Another issue is said as unfair to teachers in that student