Do Teacher Evaluations for Merit Pay Have Merit?
I find it difficult to the point of ridiculous to pinpoint any one surefire way to evaluate a teacher’s excellence in order to decide who receives or does not receive merit pay, and I am a teacher. How then, do we leave this colossal decision in the hands of government officials who are distinctly removed from the classroom and have little or no firsthand knowledge of the many qualities involved in being an excellent teacher? It is frightening!
It seems to me that any reliable evaluation designed to fairly determine who receives merit pay would require following every teacher around throughout their day, both at school and at home. If you are not a teacher or have never lived with a teacher, you have no concept of the number of hours that are dedicated outside of the school day to planning, preparing, and grading. Who will evaluate that?
Who will evaluate what kind of relationship you have with your children, the counseling you do with your students in your classroom and with parents at conference time, the hours you spend on committees, the modifications you make to your curriculum to accommodate children on IEPs, the phone calls you make to parents to praise their child or try to solve a problem their child is having in school, the children’s assignment books you check and initial daily, and the ones whose book bags you help pack at the end of the day? Who is going to see and evaluate these things? Who is going to evaluate the love you give each child in your classroom, even the ones who are hard to love, and how does that factor into an evaluation? Who will take note of the countless times you worked through your prep time at recess to intervene with students who were struggling with a concept you taught that day, or your reward system you utilize to encourage them to do their best? And who is going to observe your lessons frequently enough to evaluate the strategies you teach your children to be successful, the mnemonics you teach them to remember concepts, how you engage and motivate them, your knowledge of the subject matter and the variety of techniques you use to pass that knowledge on to them?
It boggles my mind how this evaluation nightmare can be resolved! But the bottom line is this: I did not get into teaching because of the big salary (clearly), and I couldn’t work any harder than I already do for a bigger pay out. My reward is more intrinsic, and I’m okay with that. So I guess I just don’t place much value in merit pay, but I sure would take umbrage with someone who tried to tell me I don’t deserve it.
Changes in Teaching, Merit Pay for Teachers, Teacher-World's Blog, teacher evaluations