I got my mind right boss

[boozehound]

I sincerely hope this is sarcasm, or this thread is about to explode.

Yes, it was.

[xu95]

In fairness, you can establish much more objective performance criteria for a sales job than you can for teaching. There are real problems with trying to base a teacher's performance on the success of students on the state proficiency exams. You end up with teachers who do nothing but teach to the exam, which discourages classroom innovation.
I could never be a teacher. I admire their work. I would never have the patience. That said, I find the "you can't pay teachers enough" argument pretty silly.

I don't disagree with you about the difficulty of determining how good they are, but the whole idea of tenure and pay for how long you have been there is BS.

[muskienick]

Rating teachers' performances to determine whether one is to receive a raise or not (and how much) would work well if all teachers' circumstances were roughly the same. Teachers within the same school district may teach in schools that have drastically different types of students. I taught in a district where the demographics from one feeder area to another differed greatly. In the first school in that district where I taught, many of the students came from families that seldom had two parents and where the number of siblings in the family was larger than average, thus necessitating long working hours for the remaining parent and less time to devote to encouraging the children to work at their scholastics as hard as they reasonably could. The second school consisted of students from more "yuppie-type" parents, i.e. frequently college educated and desireous of their children to achieve at the highest levels of their capability.

Heck, even within a specific school I found disparity among the challenges faced by teachers to have their students reach high (or even passing) levels of achievement. At one point in my career, I was the Department Head and I worked with the Counseling staff so that I was assigned all the known low-achievers and discipline problems at both grade levels that I taught. (I'm no freaking martyr --- I just didn't want to listen to a bunch of bitching all year long from the people in our Department about unmotivated and misbehaving students. Furthermore, I somewhat enjoyed working with such kids and I had a bit of an advantage over other teachers in that I coached sports there and had roster positions and playing time to hold over the heads of some of my students.)

One thing is for sure: I can almost guarantee that the students I taught did not score nearly as well on standardized tests as kids from other classes at the same level. But I never felt guilty for one moment when I went to deposit my paychecks!

Unless people are simply not explaining the propsals for merit pay clearly enough, I have yet to hear a plan that is fair and reasonable. I still believe the current plan could work if only the people who are put in administrative positions had the guts and expertise to make an effective evaluation process work. Crappy teachers can be (and are sometimes) weeded out by effective administrators. We just don't have enough school and district administrators with the backbone and talent to do an effective job of evaluation.

[boozehound]

Rating teachers' performances to determine whether one is to receive a raise or not (and how much) would work well if all teachers' circumstances were roughly the same. Teachers within the same school district may teach in schools that have drastically different types of students. I taught in a district where the demographics from one feeder area to another differed greatly. In the first school in that district where I taught, many of the students came from families that seldom had two parents and where the number of siblings in the family was larger than average, thus necessitating long working hours for the remaining parent and less time to devote to encouraging the children to work at their scholastics as hard as they reasonably could. The second school consisted of students from more "yuppie-type" parents, i.e. frequently college educated and desireous of their children to achieve at the highest levels of their capability.

Heck, even within a specific school I found disparity among the challenges faced by teachers to have their students reach high (or even passing) levels of achievement. At one point in my career, I was the Department Head and I worked with the Counseling staff so that I was assigned all the known low-achievers and discipline problems at both grade levels that I taught. (I'm no freaking martyr --- I just didn't want to listen to a bunch of bitching all year long from the people in our Department about unmotivated and misbehaving students. Furthermore, I somewhat enjoyed working with such kids and I had a bit of an advantage over other teachers in that I coached sports there and had roster positions and playing time to hold over the heads of some of my students.)

One thing is for sure: I can almost guarantee that the students I taught did not score nearly as well on standardized tests as kids from other classes at the same level. But I never felt guilty for one moment when I went to deposit my paychecks!

Unless people are simply not explaining the propsals for merit pay clearly enough, I have yet to hear a plan that is fair and reasonable. I still believe the current plan could work if only the people who are put in administrative positions had the guts and expertise to make an effective evaluation process work. Crappy teachers can be (and are sometimes) weeded out by effective administrators. We just don't have enough school and district administrators with the backbone and talent to do an effective job of evaluation.

Merit based pay is never 100% fair and equitable, so lets get that out of the way right now.

Here is my proposal for pay increases for teachers: There is a state-level fund for merit increases. That fund is allocated down to the district, and eventually the individual school. The principal for each school has to determine how to allocate his merit increase budget for the year. If he has 2%, that doesn't mean everybody gets 2%. Some people my get nothing, while others may get 6%. The criteria used to rate the teachers doesn't necessarily have to be test scores. It could be some type of more subjective rating system.

Of the things that I am rated on in my job 50% of them are subjective MBO's (leadership, driving change, etc.) Even the 'objective' 50% is at least 1/2 things that I don't have much direct control over (company profit, total volume, etc.) I don't see why a similar system couldn't be implemented at school. Set specific goals and MBOs for teachers and rate them against that criteria.

[nuts4xu]

I like my teachers to be hot....it stimulates learning.