Merit Pay

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Would you want to put your child into a school where they will be more likely to get bad grades, lose interest or fall behind? Merit pay or teacher pay for performance is linking how well the students do on standardized test with the pay of their teachers. If a student does exceptionally well on a standardized then the teacher would be rewarded with money. On the other side of it if a student does poorly on a standardized test, then the teacher will not receive as much money. Teachers pay should not reflect how well their students do on standardized test. This is because merit pay will cause teachers to be more dishonest, and it will drive teachers out of the industry . Other reasons why teacher pay for performance should not reflect teacher’s …show more content…
They want a supportive, creative, and collaborative environments. Teachers do not want environments where the other teachers are just teaching for the money (“Tying Teacher”). This would drive teachers away because if they see that other teachers are just doing it for the money they would not want to work there because of the poor environment. The environment would be poor because the teachers would just get greedy. They would do whatever they could to get the extra money. Which could cause selfish and self centered attitudes. Which would discourage some teachers. Switching to merit pay for teachers would discourage them to work with high-risk students. They would rather work with students who are more likely to succeed (Princeton, University). This would discourage teachers from the industry because they would not want the high-risk students to be the reason why they do not get more money. They would rather have a class full of students that they know would succeed but that is never possible. So, they would rather find another job where they would not have to worry about that. There would be more competition between teachers if the schools switch to merit pay. Therefore there would be less fraternization or talking amongst the teachers. The educators would not …show more content…
Students could not get the real education that they would get if schools just did the regular teacher paying system. Teachers will try the easiest and most efficient way to teach their students the criteria. Which will not always be the best thing for the students (Princeton, University). This will cause harm to the students because the teacher will not go in depth with the criteria and that is how some students learn best. The teachers will also try to cram all of the criteria into a short amount of time which could cause students to be more confused, lost, or it could put pressure on them. Teachers will tend to work more with the neediest students. Teachers will also be more willing to help students that they know are struggling with their home life, sickness, or a death in the family. They will be more willing because those students will be more likely to fall behind in that class (“Problems with the use of Student's Test Scores”). This would harmful to the students because that means the students that are less likely to fall behind would get less help even if they needed it. Which would cause the student to fall even further behind. Students will no longer find education fun. There would be a lot of pressure on them to do good on the tests. This would create an atmosphere that is not fun. Which could cause the student to do even worse in school (Princeton, University). If the student no longer finds school fun then they