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Should teachers be paid according to the performance of their students?

Nihilego

Nihilego

[color=#95b4d4]ユービーゼロイチ パラサイト[/color]
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As it stands (at least in the UK) all teachers in any given school are paid the same, regardless of what sort of grades their students achieve. Is this system fair? Should teaches who produce students with superior grades receive higher pay for this? What are the implications of the system used now and the system proposed?

Some points to consider here:

• Is it fair to award teachers in such a way?
• Will it increase the quality of teaching as there are higher rewards at stake?
• Will the overall quality of education improve?
• Some students cannot achieve as highly as others - is this fair on teachers?
• Could children be put under undue pressure for the benefit of the teacher?
• Could the system be cheated?

Fire away.
 
Overlord Drakow

Overlord Drakow

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I think a nice idea would be to keep the base salary of similar teachers the same but include a system where if x% of a class achieves over a certain grade, the teacher receives y% of their annual salary as a bonus, or something to that effect.

Even without the above though, I'm pretty sure that teachers who generally produce better results than other teachers would get promoted quicker anyway, so that's the current 'reward' for trying to be a better teacher.
 
Livewire

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How a student performs isn't necessarily the teacher's doing. But if can demonstrated that year in and year out, the students of a certain teacher excel, then I'd reward that teacher. If the students consistently fail, then I'd look into getting them supplemental learning help before I penalize the teacher.
 
Sydian

Sydian

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Not really quite fair. I mean, it is the teachers' jobs to get students to pass and succeed and such, but there are always still some cases that don't always perfect themselves. Like, I'd feel bad if my teachers had to rely on me for good pay because I was bad at math. Though if it were a part of the pay, then I think it might motivate teachers to really go 100% with their jobs. But even still, that would put some teachers on higher pay than others, and I think that's unfair. What about a teacher that has mostly lower performing students in their class? What about special education? Where does that come in? And what about schools that divide their classes by performing level? These are all some factors that would play a role.

As for the points you bring up, if you're going into education, you already should know you're not going into the highest paying job. So if you're in it just for money, you need to do something else for a career. Simple as that. Yes, money is the point of a job, but teaching isn't just really a job. It's a career and it's something you need to be passionate about, always. So the "getting lax" thing shouldn't happen. I'm aware not all education majors or even teachers have that philosophy, but I think education would be SO much better if they did.

As for unfair pressure, I think this would really hurt in secondary education cases. Maybe even reduce to bribing? Or possibly teachers just giving out A's to students who don't deserve it, and that's unfair to those who work hard to earn it. And unfair to the teachers that don't play dirty like that.

I really just don't think teachers should be paid by class performance. There are too many unfair factors against it.
 

Oryx

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Paying by success is a terrible idea. Syd has an excellent point with being separated by achievement - I know that even though I was in high-level classes in high school, most of the students got at least a C because they cared. On the opposite hand, the classes that were considered 'regular' often had many failing students because they didn't care about their education. That's not the fault of the teacher.

If there are rewards for good teaching, it should be on the local, school level, not at the federal level. Maybe have the states give each school so much for teacher rewards based on performance, and let the school decide who deserves the extra money based on their own unique circumstances. Maybe they give it to the teacher who has a sick child and still made it to school to teach, or a teacher that reformed some failing kids into kids with Ds.
 
Kura

Kura

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No, I don't agree with it. It is both the teacher's and student's incentive to do well.. and it should be the teacher's job to teach to their fullest for the student and be there to try and help the student succeed.
While I didn't see Drakow's idea being bad with the annual bonuses at first.. I then thought it might then just become about marking the students easily just to get more money.. and that shouldn't be the case at all.
 
antemortem

antemortem

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A teacher can tell a child '1+2 is 3' but the teacher can't make the child remember and apply that knowledge. I would give more of an in-depth analyses of my opinion, but Sydian said it so well that I would be reiterating old points.
 
Esper

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Even though I don't think it's a good idea, I do think that giving teachers more reason to work harder is a good thing. Those reasons should be caring about the students and seeing them learn and improve though. If someone has a good idea about how to achieve this then that's the idea to listen to.

A root problem, I think, is with teachers they have tenure after a certain period of time. Teachers need tenure in order to survive financially, but a certain percentage of teachers who get it might simply not care anymore, and once they have tenure they no longer have incentive to work hard because they can't be fired or gotten rid of without moving mountains. It's just a shame there isn't a way to check on teachers and find the ones who are bad and have some leverage over them to make them improve or get out of teaching. It would be too easy to abuse by a school administration/board against teachers it didn't agree with.
 
Nina

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If teachers didn't grade based on their own systems, maybe, but they do. If you judged it by how well the students did on a standardized test, that's also not fair as there are student who are just not good at test taking. That and it can cause an unfairness in the way students are treated by the teacher depending on how good they do. High ranking students wouldn't be challenged as they already meet a quota, and low ranking students would be heckled and pressured.

Then there's another problem. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there was a case in which teachers fudged the standardized test answers of an entire school before they send them in to either avoid government interference with low testing school or to boost the scores for more government money, wasn't there?
 

Oryx

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Lornami said:
If teachers didn't grade based on their own systems, maybe, but they do. If you judged it by how well the students did on a standardized test, that's also not fair as there are student who are just not good at test taking. That and it can cause an unfairness in the way students are treated by the teacher depending on how good they do. High ranking students wouldn't be challenged as they already meet a quota, and low ranking students would be heckled and pressured.

Then there's another problem. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there was a case in which teachers fudged the standardized test answers of an entire school before they send them in to either avoid government interference with low testing school or to boost the scores for more government money, wasn't there?
Click to expand...

I think multiple schools have done that in the past, haha.

There's also the problem of 'teaching to the test' - the teacher has to rush through this pre-determined curriculum not because it's the things you should know, but because it will be on the test. When I was in 8th grade, we had a standardized test called the GEPA. Part of the writing portion consisted of a picture prompt, which was just "here's a picture, write a short story based on it". My teacher spent a great deal of time just having us write timed picture prompts in class just because it was on the test, although I have never done anything even similar to that since then. That's the kind of thing that happens when we based things on standardized tests. >_o
 

razorraron

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Teachers here i the US do get paid the same depending on the class they teach, back when I was in high school my math teacher was making more then the history and science teacher. But I do think it would be a good idea to make teachers get paid more if their students are doing good in their class. Good discussion.
 

soulavenger

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If this system is implemented then it would make more sense to monitor a teacher's work and teaching abilities over a certain period of time (for 3 year min) and then reward them on the basis of this evaluation.
This will help in eliminating any flukes and will give a true image of the teacher's ability.
 
droomph

droomph

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Mrs. Clark in 7th grade said that AW HELL NO. Why? In our particular class, we had about five slackers who got bad grades consistently, and why should she get paid less? She was a great teacher, and just because slackers are there doesn't automatically make her a crappy teacher.

Instead, we should base it on averages, and as a sort of a bonus. If it stays the same (staying in the margin of about ~+-3%) or drops significantly from one semester to the next, no bonus. But if it increases (no matter now slightly but above the normal "background improvements") you get a fixed bonus (very big too!) for trying. Trying very hard to let them pass.
 
Mana1

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A teacher should be given a raise in pay if they are doing well, both managing the class and providing good grades - however you have to take into account that (at least in the UK) classes are distributed by ability.

So by good grades = better pay, only the teachers allocated the best classes get better pay.

Also, basically everything Sydian said about it inspiring cheating, bribery and would promote 'exam teaching' - which is already a big problem in schools.
 
NintendoQueen

NintendoQueen

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Razor Leaf said:
As it stands (at least in the UK) all teachers in any given school are paid the same, regardless of what sort of grades their students achieve. Is this system fair? Should teaches who produce students with superior grades receive higher pay for this? What are the implications of the system used now and the system proposed?

Some points to consider here:

• Is it fair to award teachers in such a way?
--No because not all students learn the same way, and some have a harder time learning than others.
• Will it increase the quality of teaching as there are higher rewards at stake?
--Some teachers might be motivated to do it, but others would probably feel pressured, and thus the quality of teaching might go down.
• Will the overall quality of education improve?
--I think some teachers would be caught up in all of this, and the students will suffer.
• Some students cannot achieve as highly as others - is this fair on teachers?
--No it is not, the teacher can do the best they can to guide students to do well, but for some students, school isn't for them, so the teacher needs to do what they can to guide them.
• Could children be put under undue pressure for the benefit of the teacher?
--Yes. In this case, the teachers are wanting more pay [money is the driving force, which it shouldn't be] and children could suffer because of that.
• Could the system be cheated?
--I really don't know an answer to this one. There might be teachers who are driven by money [if that is the case, then don't go into education because the pay stinks].

Fire away.
Click to expand...

My responses are in bold/italics. In this case, it looks like money is the motivator here, and if you want to make a lot of money, then don't be a teacher. Yes I do think that it's silly that teachers don't get paid enough for what they do, but there are those teachers who are so passionate about what they do, so they do what they love. I am going into education, and these discussions are of interest and relevance to me.
 

TRIFORCE89

Guide of Darkness
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Everyone should be paid on their performance. Stagnant pay encourages mediocrity from the majority and disillusions those who worked harder and do better.

However... I don't think student performance is the way to go. We do have standardized tests and that is to determine money allocation to school boards and individual schools, and I think that makes sense. Doesn't make sense for teachers though.

I'm fine with a base pay. Teachers should be paid more for going that extra mile though. Someone who stays after school, who does activities with their students, who tries to teach innovative ways, who really loves their job and has a passion for teaching, who wants to make a difference in their students' lives should be paid more than someone who just does the minimum amount of work and lives solely by the teacher's manual.
 
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