Merit pay sounds nice but will not work. I was in favour of it as a young teacher but maturity brings realism at least to some teachers. Who would judge who deserves merit pay? If it is a principal, then "suck up" to his or her ideas and get merit pay. There is already too much of that in education. If it is fellow teachers, then suck up to each of them and make deals so you get merit pay this year and they will get your vote next year. Also teachers do acquire a disease from time-to-time called, at least by me, "ivory-tower-syndromitis".
This disease has symptoms such as falling for fads like taking phonics out of schools because some teachers merely copied work pages to teach them instead of actually teaching the tool of phonics. I learned to read before school by my parents helping me sound out words on cereal boxes and used that tool my whole life long. More mature teachers fit some phonics in despite the ban and students were the better for it. May I remind teachers about New Math, Cuisenaire blocks, and open classrooms?
Now the fad, which I thought had died out when I retired over 12 years ago of eliminating awards for top achievers in sports and academics is the latest reincarnation of the disease. Life is full of competition. The best teams win their respective cups. The top students get into medical school and get the plum jobs. The best newspaper reporters get jobs at the National Post! [Sorry still a bit of "sucking up" left in me. (:-)]
Life is full of competition and when teachers try to live in a fantasy world usually inhabited mainly by movie stars that think they know things, they have contracted the deadly disease at its worst. To my fellow teachers who believe these ludicrous notions I say, "Come on out into the real world, the air is fine!" Delusion, illusion or seclusion do not lead to the world in which we live.
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