Sherman Dorn wrote this great piece on performance pay for teachers.
It’s not a revolutionary idea to pay people more if their work gets better results. I understand why “performance” has become such a dirty word when applied to educators, but seriously, we need to pay teachers extra if they get outstanding results, and pay them even more if they’re doing so in the most challenging situations.
We shouldn’t expect teachers to be saints who are willing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of good reading scores or self-immolate in the most violent classrooms. We don’t expect anyone ELSE to work simply for the sake of doing their good deeds in the world regardless of the recognition and rewards they receive.
Teachers are just like students. They like to know when they are doing a good job, and they like to be rewarded for it. Period.
So what’s the problem? Well, as usual, it’s all about keeping it fair. When teachers who teach in rich white neighborhoods end up being the ones more likely to get rewarded for good results than those who teach in poor minority neighborhoods, well, we’ve got a problem. And unfortunately, it’s been pretty hard to find a way to make performance pay work for those who are in most need of the support it offers.
Let’s keep talking about performance pay for teachers. Please.
