Should Teachers Pay Be Linked To Student Grades

[Lady's Human]

Let's see.....things outside of my control:

equipment operators

machine programming/design

quality of the parts

the mail being run through the machines.

Extra time spent outside of work: about 2 years training (so far) in Oklahoma away from home, in addition to the training and experience that got me the job in the first place, and occasionally fielding calls to help other techs when things really get screwed up.

I still get paid if I can't fix a machine or a network system, but if it happens too many times I'll have issues.

We all deal with issues in our jobs which are outside of our direct control. No one profession has a corner on the work done behind the scenes.

[Pembroke_Corgi]

Let's see.....things outside of my control:

equipment operators

machine programming/design

quality of the parts

the mail being run through the machines.

Extra time spent outside of work: about 2 years training (so far) in Oklahoma away from home, in addition to the training and experience that got me the job in the first place, and occasionally fielding calls to help other techs when things really get screwed up.

I still get paid if I can't fix a machine or a network system, but if it happens too many times I'll have issues.

We all deal with issues in our jobs which are outside of our direct control. No one profession has a corner on the work done behind the scenes.

LH, I see where you are coming from but I don’t agree. Whenever you work with people, things are not as cut and dried as fixing a broken machine. Think about this scenario (I’m not entirely clear how things run at the postal service, so forgive me if this is a clumsy analogy).

Let’s pretend each employee at the PO is expected to process 500 pieces of mail per week. No exceptions. If you fail to meet your goal, you will have your pay docked. At your PO, 75% of your mail takes more time to process than standard mail. You do not have the option to work later/longer in order to get your work done. Your average is typically 400 pieces of mail/week, because it would not do to have different standards for different post offices. Assuming you want don’t want your pay docked, what are your options? Cut corners (so you get it done faster, but maybe not as well), quit, or find an easier post office to work at.

[Lady's Human]

No, I'm not missing the human in the equations, they are part of the machine.

To take a different tack.....

For 2 years I was the ops NCO for a training team, and also an instructor.

I was a teacher. The military in wartime has a fairly harsh grading curve. If you teach your students well, they stand a far better chance of living than if they have a lousy instructor. Same varied inputs, (everyone from gung ho soldiers to people pissed because they just joined for the college money), but only one standard. At the end of the day, the soldiers leaving the training team's care HAD to know their job.

Incompetence on the podium was not put up with, and instructors were removed for...................their students (soldiers) not learning the required tasks. No questions asked. When 1A decided that soldiers weren't learning, the instructors were removed. In a few cases I know of the removal from the podium ended their careers.

Were otherwise competent soldiers careers ended because their students didn't learn?

Yup.

Did they have control over the soldiers they received to train? Nope.

There HAVE to be performance standards for teachers. What they should be is open for debate, but without standards, the education system is done.

[Lady's Human]

As an addition, there are jobs where that is the standard. It's called flat rate work in the automotive industry, and in general industry it's called piecework, which used to be a fairly standard pay scale (In some industries it still is)

[Pembroke_Corgi]

I agree that teachers should have some performance standards. However, getting paid based on student test scores is unfair to teachers, because it doesn't necessarily measure how hard or effectively teachers are working.

A student who comes into the 6th grade at a kindergarten reading level is still expected to meet grade level. A teacher could work very hard with the student (with or without parental involvement, though it is MUCH more difficult to accomplish anything without the parents' help) and the student could make great progress (for example read at a 3rd grade level) but still not meet their grade level. Imagine a school where this is the norm, and not the exception (as it is in many, many urban schools). A teacher at another school could have a classroom full of kids who already meet or exceed their grade level. This teacher could hypothetically kick back and relax (not saying they would) and make more than the teacher who worked their tail off. The result is that teachers will only want to work at the schools where parents are more involved and students are prepared for school.

Of course I think teachers need to do a good job, and performance standards is a good way to check on this. However, basing it on student grades is absolutely the wrong way to do it. Student progress may be a bit more fair, but I still think teachers who work at disadvantaged schools will still have a more difficult time meeting those kinds of goals.

[Lady's Human]

A student who comes into the 6th grade at a kindergarten reading level is still expected to meet grade level.

And short of an ESL or child with a learning disability, why is a child with that reading level entering 6th grade?

Screw social promotion, embarrass the hell out of them and they might have a newfound impetus to learn. It'd look damned silly for an 11 y/o to still be in kindergarten.

[wombat2u2004]

If teachers are expected to perform more.....then why not pay them more ???