Education

Meritless

By Anthony Rebora — October 23, 2007 1 min read
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NYC Educator responds skeptically (to put it mildly) to New York’s new merit pay plan, under which teachers in high-needs schools can earn up to $3,000 in extra pay, depending on test scores:

Let's say I move to a high needs school and actually receive the top bonus one year. After taxes and union dues, I'm looking at $1500 extra bucks. Divide that by 24 pay cycles and you're looking at $62.50 a pay cycle - and that's the most you can receive!
Does anybody at the DOE, in the press, at the education think tanks and at City Hall really think $62.50 a pay cycle is an incentive for anything?
Because if they do, than they must think teachers are even dumber than they already seem to think we are.

If the powers that be really wanted to keep good teachers in the system, he says, they’d offer up some “real reform,” and he has some suggestions as to what that might consist of.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Blogboard blog.