Jeff Smith’s case for merit pay
Jeff Smith
JEFFERSON CITY — Mo. Sen. Jeff Smith had an op-ed piece about education reform in the Beacon on Tuesday:
It is illogical for a 30-year teaching veteran whose students invariably make little academic progress to make twice what a third-year teacher makes when the latter’s students consistently make two years worth of progress in a year. That’s why I support efforts to allow both principals and teachers to opt into performance pay plans that will partially tie compensation to gains in student achievement. KIPP schools typically hire, fire and reward principals and teachers based on students’ progress. If we seek to hold public schools accountable for their results - and we must - we must also grant them the flexibility to link pay with performance.
Read the rest here. Read Tony Messenger’s column on Smith’s education policies here.
Great idea from Smith although not a new one.
Prepare yourself from the NEA lynching you are about to receive.
this is really not a good idea, its also illogical for us to expect that special needs teachers/educators whose students are many times the reasons that schools do not make AYP to be unrewarded because their students dont perform well because of physical or other reasons not of their making…this will cause teachers to just teach the other students the tests and how to take them and it will mean little or nothing about what the student knows. If one thinks we are in this for the money….get another job….we neither want you or need you in our profession…of course we try every day to make education our profession…get it now profession….not just a job with a paycheck…do the research please
I’ll give Smith merit pay for city teachers if Smith will take merit pay for his job. The catch is that Smith’s merit pay will be based on his constituents feelings on the bills that passed the senate. I know many in his district don’t agree with a lot of the bills that pass the Missouri Senate.
Let’s say a state senator has a salary of $35,000. Let’s say 100 bills passed the Senate.
Smith would be able to collect $350 for every bill passed that his constituents liked.
That should give him a salary just short of $2000.
Therefore he will be held accountable for things completely out of his control.
Amazed, unlike the NEA you have probably not set a foot in a public school for some time.
In addition, the NEA does NOT represent the SLPS teachers. (Get some “schoolin’” will ya!)
This is a district that is desperate for teachers. This is due to the accredition and financial prospects of the district as well as the hurdles faced in many of the classrooms. We need to focus on recruiting good teachers not shunning them away with the threat of paycuts for matters that are completely out of their control.
suzyjax, you might try some schoolin’ yourself. If you had read the bill that Smith sponsored, or the paragraph above, you would know that teachers would opt into the merit pay system. It isn’t mandatory and would therefore wouldn’t even remotely discourage new teachers - as if the promise of better pay ever discouraged anyone from taking a job!
It’s not about cutting pay for teachers who may have children with difficult circumstances, but about rewarding teachers who work overtime to combat those seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and whose work or innovation achieves results. Smith’s job is a merit pay system. If the people he’s accountable to (us) don’t like his performance, we stop paying him. We give the job to someone else.
I can understand the fear that teachers might be punished, through no fault of their own, but that just isn’t the case with Smith’s legislation. It’s about giving bonuses, really, but making sure our tax dollars are going to reward excellent teachers, and not those who happen to be teachers. I find the idea of hiring less than adequate, uninspired teachers simply because we have a slot to fill abhorrent and irresponsible.