Sounds like teacher pay for performance

Reader comment on: Public Sector Pay Is Higher

Submitted by ben (United States), Aug 26, 2010 09:51

It would be crazy to link pay to absolute performance. That would discourage talented teachers (police, firefighters etc) from working in the toughest area. Linking pay with improved performance is great on paper, but very hard to actually implement. I have yet to see a plan for teacher performance pay that isn't fatally flawed in some way. I am in favor of merit pay in theory, and would be as well with other public services. The most effective thing I have seen is in DC, where Rhee has gotten the union to take a pay increase but relinquish some of the ironclad job security in exchange. In my experience as a teacher, teachers get lazy and ineffective not because they lack incentives such as merit pay, but because they have nothing to fear if they do a poor job.

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