Over at edspresso.com, Larry Sand takes teachers’ unions to school for opposing merit pay:
One of the great bete noires of the unions is merit pay. They insist that all teachers at a similar point in their career make the exact same amount of money as other teachers at that same point. Good teachers earning more than bad teachers? Not on their agenda. Clearly, this old-style industrial model of paying people can kill incentive. Good teachers are less likely to have the impetus to excel when their neighbors who have lower aspirations, are less talented and less effective still make the same amount of money. Hence, good teachers suffer at the expense of their lower performing peers.
Good teachers can also be discriminated against in another way. If a school district needs to cut back its workforce, who gets cut? The lower performing teachers? No. Thanks to the unions, the system is based strictly on seniority. Quality is not a factor. When cutbacks were necessary in a Minnesota school district, a gifted and innovative Teacher of the Year who had won many awards and was loved by her students was among those who lost their jobs. It didn’t matter that she was eminently more qualified than most of the teachers who retained their jobs. It was simply their version of last hired, first fired.
More here.
IWF on the subject here.