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Yohann Cauwenbergh

Student, Business Engineering, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium

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What do you think of merit-based pay for teachers?

I don't know if the question is still relevant, I haven't followed it until recently but I heard it was quiet a debate at the Presidential election and wanted to know what he TED community thought of this.
Is merit-based pay for teachers a good idea... There are a lot of pros and cons about the topic: Will it help the education of the students (the main goal of the would-be arrangement)? Will the amount of teachers have a positive boost? Will it make the teachers too competitive, lessening the cooperation between them?

Please write your ideas.

(English is not my first language so excuse the grammatical errors and easy language)

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    pat gilbert 50+

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    Nov 24 2012: Yes

    But the devil is in determining the metric. The down fall of every organization since the beginning of time is in quality control. Since this area has to be scrutinized in other words not glossed over the best person for quality control is the customer as they are the best judge of what is best for them. Consequently schools that are held accountable to the customer are what should be endorsed.

    Educators generally do not understand the free market.

    • John Frum 30+

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      Nov 24 2012: The private domain has already figured out the answer to determining metrics. In some of the countries I have visited, I came across many parents who were sending their kids to private tuitions, which the kids would have to attend after their regular classes. Apparently, that's how the kids could remain competitive in their exams. As a quick check, I used a country-neutral search site (https://www.ixquick.com) to search for "private tuitions". I came across several articles about India, Pakistan, Dubai, Kuwait, and of course, I came across several website advertising their services.

      Parents usually use two methods to figure out to which tutor to send their kids: 1. how well students do in competitive exams 2. feedback from friends of their kids about each tutor.
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        pat gilbert 50+

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        Nov 24 2012: The argument is that the students are only taught for the test. I see validity to this argument.

        I would think that the parents are going to put more value in the recommendations.

        • John Frum 30+

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          Nov 24 2012: I agree. That is indeed the downside. Many of them do not go beyond rote-learning. Fundamental sciences are doing very badly in these countries.

          My Indian, Pakistani, and Iranian friends tell me that there are just a handful of excellent institutions in their countries, but the competition for those is intense. Those that want to do better go to one of the developed countries after their bachelors'.

          In my own field, when I look at research papers, I see quite a few people from these countries contributing with excellent, original research, but it is almost never through institutes of their country of origin.
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        pat gilbert 50+

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        Nov 24 2012: The problem to me centers around application. The way to test is not on memorization but on application, if you went to school to fry eggs the test should be let me see you fry an egg.

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