“Our classes aren’t divided equally. If you want us to have merit pay, you’ve got to base all our classrooms equally and give all teachers a chance to achieve those standards but it’s not set up that way. It never has been. “

“I’ve been teaching for nineteen years and I’ve had more evaluations this year than I had my first year of teaching. You are welcome in our classroom anytime. I want to be accountable. I am accountable,… but do it fairly,”

We’ve just watched the Olympics… What if any skier could start where they wanted to on the slope. As long as they had the shortest time, they won gold. What if a speed skater could skate as many times around the oval as he desired, and yet the shortest total time won?

Who would watch? No one. Because it is not fair… Obviously if you are going to give merit pay to teachers, you have to have equal arrangements…  An equal start where you begin. An equal finish where you end.  You can’t give one person all good students, and another all bad students, and golf-clap and pay the lucky one more? Perhaps lucky as she was, when it comes to teacher qualities, she isn’t the best one?

But how do you know? You certainly can’t tell from the test scores… because like a fake Olympics, you neglected to designate a starting line…

One seriously has to wonder if anyone thought merit pay through… Seriously! Did anyone really sit down for a day, play devils advocate, and think merit pay through?

Or did we base our whole system” on something that somebody said, because they though they fit together walking…. “, that is merit pay and teaching?

Do all teachers start with the same number of students in classes? Do all teachers start with the same spread of IQ’s across all their students? Do all teachers start with exactly the same low income mix in every classroom? Do all teachers start with exactly the same mix of non English students? Do all teachers start with the same number of Hispanics? Afro-Americans? American Indians? Asians? Caucasians?

What no? Then like the Olympics above, how can you say, whoopee, you win the gold?

Merit Pay will be the death of real education….