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Maria Rodriguez
Mr. Schmitt
English 1001-Section 34
25 November 2014
Student Performance Affecting Pay
School systems have originally paid their employees based on years of experience and
education backgrounds. Now, a new concept has emerged called pay-for-performance, also
known as merit pay that is intended to base the salary for teachers on evaluations. The
evaluations come from test scores and in class observations from upper administrators. Teacher
pay-for-performance causes controversy because schools want to reward their teachers for
outstanding performance, but on the other hand measuring performance could be disputable.
Merit pay claims it can improve the quality of teachers, but there is no way to accurately prove
that extra pay is the source of improved educators. Since performance pay is such an arguable
subject, you must first look at some of the ups and downs that show as a result of using it.
Merit pay has been an on-going battle for a few centuries now. During the mid 1800s,
merit pay was introduced to a school in Britain that based pay on specifically student
examinations. Unfortunately, there was cheating and misbehavior involved a few years later,
causing the system to shut down. Around 1918, merit pay emerged the schools in the United
States with different regulations. Pay was subjective depending on the age or gender of the
employee. For example, a white man was getting more money than a woman or young adult.
Once women won the women’s suffrage vote, the paying scale became fair for all genders and
ages. Finally in 1999, a school in Denver, Colorado was introduced to the merit pay and with
stricter guidelines. The guidelines led merit pay to finally be successful. It provided extra pay to
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teachers based on performance evaluations from test scores and classroom observations.
However, it became evident that measuring the achievement of teachers was problematic (Grats
77).
As said earlier, there are school districts in the U.S. that use the system today. President
Obama has brought pay-for-performance into the schools by opening a fund named “Race to
Top” that sways districts to act on merit pay (Rosales). Traditionally, teachers are paid on
experience, college degrees, and any certifications. Now, 3.5 % out of 14,000 schools have
thrown away the original system and introduced merit pay. Although these districts are using
evaluations to pay teachers, it does not mean the evaluations are accurate. Sometimes, it may be
more effective to use traditional pay than the other. The main goal after all is to reward teachers
and if that is not being achieved through merit pay, changes should be made (“In the United
