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Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Teachers: How Motivated Are You?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Rep. Jan Jones (R-Alpharetta) penned a guest editorial in today’s InsiderAdvantage political newsletter calling for “real change” in public education. (Another version of her column ran in Monday’s AJC.)
“To fix education, Georgia has to venture off the soft sofa of an entrenched public education system and into the uncomfortable,” Jones wrote.
So Jones offered a “to-do” list for her fellow lawmakers, presumably for the coming session, including creating policies that put more emphasis on finding and keeping quality teachers.
For starters, she suggests offering “generous” merit pay for educators who can show their worth and ending across-the-board “Soviet-style” pay raises.
Jones also wants to do away with stipends for teachers who earn advanced degrees (master’s degrees or doctorates) that have nothing to do with their classroom work and use the budget savings to provide higher pay to lure teachers to tough-to-fill jobs (in math and science, in particular).
Certainly, a debate on the merits of merit pay would provide for an interesting legislative session. But I’m skeptical whether that would happen in an election year.
If it does, there’s one niggling question that needs to be answered. That is, whether basing salaries on students’ test scores will really motivate teachers to teach.
UPDATE: Coincidentally, AJC editorial writer Maureen Downey had a similarly themed piece in today’s Opinion section. Downey also wants to see state legislators focus on creating a better teaching force partly by using merit pay: “Georgia must abandon its one-size-fits-all raises that assure the lackluster teachers are overpaid and inspiring ones underpaid.”
