Teacher Performance and Pay
Today we continue the discussion on rating teachers, perforamce and pay. End episode with a pessimistic assessment of where I believe things are headed this fall.
The concept of merit pay has been floated before. It does have its drawbacks though if the criteria for how it is disbursed are not in line with improved teacher performance. Relying heavily on one measure such as test scores or leaving too much power in the hands of one principal won’t suffice. It will require all the stakeholders in public education, including the teacher unions to devise a fair system of teacher evaluation that can allow for performance pay and the removal of bad teachers that are a barrier to student learning. If the teacher unions will not come to the table on this issue or rally their members to continue the status quo then their true colours will have been shown. Public education will lose its relevance as a pillar of this province as fed up parents will choose vouchers and charter schools for their children. Hopefully this scenario can be avoided with strong leadership on this issue.
As I predicted Teachers and their stubborn unions want no part of any meaningful evaluation system - according to the union - teachers are all equals and any system that challenges that falsehood is shunned.
Public sector unions continually fail to recognize that they are major stakeholders in public education and they cannot solely represent the interests of their member teachers. This strategy will only cause the destruction of public education as moderates will flock to support charter schools as is the case in the U.S. . Notable Democrats there have become fed up with teacher unions' self-interest and now talk over them and support Charter Schools as a way to improve the system.
The same situation will occur here in time as inner-city education decays and money flows out of the system. Make no mistake - public education in Ontario is suffering from inaction on this file and it's the teacher unions, not any right-wing government that bares the blame.