Here is why proposals to pay teachers for performance will never work.
A child at any moment in her or his education has multiple teachers that influence her performance (including parents, by-the-way).
As a child enters middle school, junior high school, and high school they travel to multiple classrooms. They are influenced by not only core subject teachers but by art, music, drama, physical education, guidance teachers, and even inspired by activity teachers and administrators.
So, in this world of “standardized tests” which capture quantitatively one moment in time (snapshot) which teacher this year (or perhaps it was one of last year’s teachers) is responsible for the high test score???
What about the qualitative side of this equation (the motion picture) that no one has begun to develop a model to capture? What teacher gets some sort of “bonus pay” for making any kind of difference in the cognitive, social, psychological, musical, artistic, development of this child???????
Political candidates and office holders need to get very real here and admit they haven’t got a clue.
Let’s invest in the public schools and forget this nonsense…it is the only true way to move quality education forward.
Dr. Charles Maranzano is Superintendent of the Dinwiddie County Public Schools
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