Can't They Just Work for Apples?

Paying teachers based on performance sounds like a good plan. Now if only someone could figure out how to make it work.

B.C. Liberal leadership candidate Kevin Falcon’s suggestion that teachers be paid based on merit has not received rave reviews. “The idea has a superficial appeal because teaching quality is a key to student achievement,” writes the Globe and Mail editorial board, but it could “wind up costing billions of dollars for little or no result.” To be at all effective, the Globe points out, raises based on performance would have to be fairly substantial and would drastically strain provinces’ already stretched education budget. Given that teacher performance is incredibly difficult to measure, the Globe suggests any budget increase be put into lower-cost tools like training.

Because merit pay has enjoyed a degree of success in other countries, the Globe’s Gary Mason thinks the idea is promising if an accurate method of determining the performance of Canadian teachers could be devised. Given the vastly different conditions under which Canada’s educators teach, he says standardized tests are useless in evaluating performance. Instead he suggests any effective measure would “take into account factors such as the socio-economic makeup of the class itself, which can affect standardized testing scores,” and that tracking a student's progress over the course of the year would also give an good picture of teachers’ performance.

“The first problem with Kevin Falcon's proposal … is its fuzziness,” says an editorial in the Victoria Times Colonist. “The idea is more musing than a serious policy proposal.” The paper’s editors suggest some sensible concrete models, like starting pilot projects in disadvantaged neighbourhoods to determine the best way to increase education outcomes. If we want to serve students better, “handing the funding and responsibility to selected school boards and waiting to assess results might be the most effective method,” suggests the paper, rather than a top-down overhaul of teachers’ pay structure.

It’s not clear if the National Post’s Kelly McParland is trying to be clever or trying to be cute with this article that suggests that as long as we’re dealing with teachers, we should find a way to pay politicians based on merit. That would teach those bastards in Ottawa!