Teacher merit pay not easy to decipher

I am a retired elementary teacher. Regarding teacher merit pay based primarily on class test scores, the judgment scale about who is an effective teacher should be weighted with several factors in addition to teacher education and experience. A checklist of such factors might be:

l Number of students in a class.

Number of students operating under an individual educational plan.

l Transient students being taught by that teacher; when they moved in.

l Academic levels at which each student entered; how much individual improvement occurs

l Students undergoing traumatic family or personal events.

l Evidence of parent support, home environment and encouragement for learning.

l School-provided materials and physical environment.

These factors impact learning in a group setting, even with the best of teachers.

Also, how do you score the intangible interactions that occur between teachers and students, the relationships that eventually make each classroom a small community of widely diverse people? How do you score how a teacher motivates or the attitude of a student who resists all attempts to be motivated?

Another intangible is the climate of the entire school, usually developed by administrators. Many people are proud of their whole school community, but how do you build a school climate of cooperation if teachers compete for money in their paychecks?

Merit pay is easy to say and very difficult to implement in ways that promote high levels of motivated teaching and learning.

Susan Wakefield

Coralville