Teach Great

Being a good teacher requires many attributes, some innate, some learned, or some earned. Teachers are the people who are shaping and instructing our children, shouldn’t they be paid a reasonable amount? If we used incentive based pay for teachers, we may increase the quality teachers entering the field, retain the best teachers while eliminating the worst, and encourage teachers to use innovative and creative teaching methods.

According to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), teachers should be rewarded for excellent teaching. If all teachers are paid based on the number of years teaching, there is little incentive to become a better teacher. Without merit pay, there is the potential loss of great teachers who find higher paying jobs elsewhere and the retention of low performing teachers who may get tenure and realize there is no chance of getting fired. The Cato Institute also realizes the importance of merit pay. Two teachers may get paid the same amount while one strives to teach well and the other may be doing the minimum to get by. It is unfortunate the students will suffer because of this.

Our small community has trouble retaining the best teachers, as it is easy for them to find higher paying jobs in bigger surrounding cities. There are few other incentives to recruit quality teachers to our area. With merit based pay, we could attract people to the field that could excel in the teaching profession. Teachers usually do not enter the field for the money, but many leave it because of the lack of money or lack of motivation to stick around. Without this, we may lose more and more great teachers, while only retaining the mediocre ones.