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AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME: MERIT PAY FOR TEACHERS

Posted on: October 16, 2007

by Bryan Fischer, Executive Director, Idaho Values Alliance

Although his plan could be improved in some significant ways, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna has floated a plan to give bonuses to teachers in schools where students perform well or show strong improvement on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test (ISAT).

This plan will generate predictably intense opposition from the Idaho Education Association, whose policies protect incompetent teachers and result in outstanding teachers being paid exactly the same is poor ones.

The teachers’ union wants teacher compensation to be based on education and time served rather than on any demonstrable ability to contribute to improved student performance.

The main weakness in Luna’s plan is that it rewards schools as a whole rather than individual teachers. This means quite simply that an outstanding teacher surrounded by poor teachers will be denied the proposed bonus, while an incompetent teacher surrounded by excellent instructors will ride their coattails to an undeserved bonus. But Luna’s plan is a step in the right direction.

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