Fla. to Link Teacher Pay To Students' Test Scores

The State of Florida is moving ahead with a plan to link teacher pay with student successes, namely test scores. Under the plan, as described by the Washingotn Post, teachers would be eligible for a 5% bonus, which for a teacher making roughly $40,000, would come to about $2,000. After Uncle Sam takes his chunk, that bonus will be about $1500--not much of an incentive. But it is a start.

I know that many blogs run by teachers may read this and quickly make the same statement made in the story,

"Standardized tests don't measure everything in a child's life in school," said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association, which is appealing the new pay policy to a state administrative judge. "We should take a look at the total education and not just what they can put on a bubble sheet."

. However, later in the article, comes these paragraphs:

Although only the top 10 percent in each field will receive the 5 percent salary supplement, all public-school teachers in Florida will be affected by the new pay policy because their annual evaluations will rely "primarily" on "improved achievement by students," according to the new rules, a criterion that is expected to be often measured with standardized tests.

"I know it adds pressures, but what profession doesn't add pressure for performance?" Winn asked.

Indeed. I have said before, and been chastised in the comments, for suggesting that in order for teachers to be paid like professionals, they need to act like professionals. Thus, in order for good teachers to be paid what they are actually worth in society, the teaching profession is going to have to suck it up and realize that a market economy for their services will do a lot better for the pay and performance than any negotiated contract the unions can come up with.

There are some legitimate concerns about how to structure pay and bonuses so that there are financial incentives for good teachers to continue to perform and be rewarded for their effort. However, the socialist regime currently in place in modern teaching contracts obviously is not working to produce a crop of truly excellent teachers paid like excellent teachers should be.

Will this system work? It might, if everyone puts a good faith effort into the plan. However, even if it doesn't work as hoped, it provides something even more useful, a real program that can be evalusated, comprehensively. We cannot find new successes without a few failures, so at least there is movement forward.

However, it is important to note that some advocates of more market based approaches, such as Edison Project's Chris Whittle, believe that bonuses and merit pay need to be substantial in order to really operate as incentives. A 5% bonus for 10 percent of the teachers is not going to cut it. But as I said, better something than nothing.