By Jihwan Chang, Westlake High School, Grade 10
May 31, 2011
California is in a tough situation with students. For the past 20 years, students have been declining in performance while teachers have been gaining increased salaries. With money being tight for the California Education Budget, a widespread yet controversial issue is brought up more than ever: merit pay for teachers.
Merit pay refers to the idea that better teaching should bring better pay. Currently, merit pay is not in effect; the salary depends on many different factors including years worked and relations with unions, but the students’ success is not a criterion for higher pay. Methods of merit pay in terms of school also include allowing students and parents to choose where they go to school.
Some believe that this method of pay will be beneficial to the school. James Azevedo, a teacher at Westlake High School, advocates the merit system for schools.
“I’ve been in agreement with that [merit pay] for 30 years. Some teachers are overpaid, and some teachers are underpaid. Not all are the same or alike,” he said. “Some teachers are better and some teachers aren’t. It takes the teachers’ incentive away to get paid whatever [regardless of performance].”
Currently, many private schools have already implemented merit pay. They have student to teacher grading, standardized tests, and parent evaluation that all reflect upon a classroom’s performance. Although the method to grading teachers is not an easy formula, many different factors may contribute to a teacher’s success.
One may wonder exactly why merit pay has not been adopted yet. The answer lies in the powerful teacher’s union. In a question regarding the union’s influence over teachers as a whole, he responded that they “have too much importance.”
Azevedo is not alone in his views of teacher unions. CATO institute Director of Education Darcy Ann Olsen writes, “Uniform pay protects the worst at the expense of the best. Why do union leaders support this?—Simple.,self-interest. Merit-based pay would destroy the heart of the collective bargaining process. If every teacher negotiated his own salary, there would be less need for unions.”
As Olsen explains, unions lose power through merit pay. Thus, the obvious response from teacher unions’ like that in California is disapproval. Such a disagreement was shown in 2005, when Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed plan to pay teacher “by merit, not tenure” resulted in a threat from the union to trigger an all-out-fight between the governor and the unions, according to the LA Times.
