Merit Pay for Teachers

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Forms of merit pay
The Disadvantages of Performance Based Compensation
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Merit pay, as many would call it, is a practice in which the salary of the worker is determined based on the basis of how well individual worker is successful in his/her work. This method of compensating employees may seem attractive as it makes sense to reward those employees who demonstrate high productivity and subsequently high contribution to the sector or the organization in question. This method may also look interesting as it show fairness and retains employees in the company.

Forms of merit pay

Annual salary increment

Forms of merit pay include instances where a workers annual salary is increased on the basis of the productivity. Anyone whose work is assessed and found to be good re receives an increment in his/her salary.

The bonus system

In the bonus system of performance appraisals, hardworking and productive workers are rewarded with a bonus payment for only that period of time.

Direct compensation

This approach takes a direct recompense for quantified method of production. This is highly practiced in factory set ups and is not applicable in the merit payment for teachers (Bacal 3).

The Disadvantages of Performance Based Compensation

It is argued that this mode of compensation will be anomalous to the character of effective schooling. It is feared that this method of payment will suppress reforms in the education sector mainly by causing enmity between teachers as they endeavor to earn more pay.

Conflicts may arise in schools between teachers who are not compensated against those get high paychecks. Jealousy may arise from the administrators (who could be fellow teachers) against the teaching staff if they earn more. This is expected to give rise to competition and weak teachers may feel endangered.

This conflict between the two parties becomes unfortunate if it differently influences student learning. Concern also arises due to the financial attachment of the evaluation as some of those who do not qualify for the award fear that the judgment was not really equitable. It can be seen that the spirit of competition instilled into the teachers by this program becomes unhealthy and ideas are no longer shared.

Learning climate in the school change and teachers no longer share the hard work fearing that the credit may be beneficial to only one of them. In general, competition rather than cooperation arises. A common misunderstanding that arises is the comparison with commission stores that base their compensation on this mode and attain high productivity in sales. A clear observation reveals constant rivalry and lack of cooperation. The effect would cause our education system to crumble.

Merit payment is inequitable; it could lead to the rise of free riders who lie low and only come out during the sharing of the kill. This is especially so if merit payment is done as per department. This will deter collaboration because hard workers will become demoralized when they observe others slaking off. It is common knowledge that for any education system to prosper, teaching should be done in teamwork and collaboration (Solmon and Podgursky 8).

Performance-based payment tend to oppose the above notion by creating division, in fact, it is inappropriate and counterproductive. Supporters of the performance based payment argue that effort is not always collaborative to be productive. However, teaching is not like athletics, in athletics, individual effort matter most and the runners are paid based on their performance in the field, there can be no otherwise.

It is not clear on what basis anyone is dubbed a good teacher. There lacks proper parameters in measuring the goodness of a teacher in the educational process. Standardized tests cannot be relied on in the evaluation of teachers as they are sometimes very difficult to use in gauging the relevance of a teacher to the students using their achievement (Abma 6). The two famous measures that proponents suggest for evaluation of teachers are inconclusive. No teacher can decide on what a given student get in an exam.

The test scores are also very ineffective in some spheres of the curriculum, for example, these tests do not measure well performances in arts or in contests (Solmon and Podgursky 8). How do you evaluate an artistic teacher? A teacher who is able to deal with imperfect situations? This teacher deals with various parties ranging from disturbed students, administrators, union employees. All teachers are therefore important in their own ways. It is difficult to also evaluate how a teacher make a class feel.

Conclusion

It is evident from all over the world that merit based compensation poses serious problems especially in public schools. It is my view that this system should be left to operate in the private schools and in other industries. There are very few instances where this system has worked properly more so in the public school. Merit-based system has been experimented and has so far no fruits have been bored. I propose for a complete neglect of this system.

Works Cited

Abma, Derek. Merit-Based Pay For Teachers Ineffective, Educators Say. National Post Inc. 2011. Web.

Bacal, Richard. Performance Management and Appraisal Help Centre. Bacal & Associates, 2010. Web.

Solmon, Lewis., & Podgursky, Michael. The Pros and Cons of Performance-Based Compensation. Milken Family Foundation. 2011. Web.

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