There is no evidence that merit pay, that is money, produces superior performance. In the Commonwealth public service, merit pay for executives is said to have led to everyone getting a bonus. Teachers are not recognised as working long hours, they receive relatively poor support – they usually have to share a computer – and most particularly the incredibly central role they play in the future of society is hardly appreciated. Education is the single most important issue for all communities and nations. Consider India, most particularly Kerala.

What there is evidence for is that greater support and recognition of above average performance, combined with formative evaluation, that is regular discussion and support, makes a difference. And an important feature for teachers is the opportunity for professional development. University of Arizona education expert David Berliner has set out succinctly the factors that improve education performance. Has anyone in this whole education debate mentioned him or any of the other outstanding researchers?

Instead, teachers are being pushed into testing and don't even have control of that. Most of the "policy wonks" are hooked on simplistic views. Business persons – the same ones who promote the proposition that “welfare to work” will help diminish the skill shortage - don’t want to spend any money training people and upper middle class parents think their child is never properly recognised.

In the USA there is a vast amount of high quality research on education. Yet there are complaints that the research is not rigorous enough and should be like the research done for the pharmaceutical industry. Well, Berliner has shown how foolish that is. Is it possible that the research is being condemned for its inadequacy because it is not producing results which support the preconceived ideology of the elites?

Last, Andrew Leigh didn't produce any evidence to support the proposition that it would be better to try to overcome the decline in literacy and numeracy of teachers: he simply asserted that it would likely produce more change. So why did Minister Bishop leap upon this?

In an ideal world the best teachers would be working in the worst skills where their skills are most required. How would you value merit in that situation? Teachers work with a different group of students each year before passing them on to another teacher. How do you measure which teacher which has contributed the most from year to year.

No matter what the best intentions are merit pay finishes up as a rort with a few at the top getting rewarded whether they have earned it or not and the rest just get pissed off and don't work as hard or as well as they could.

Study after study has shown that money is not the primary motivator for most workers.

Good teachers can't be bought, but they should be rewarded for their hard-won skills.
Long service in teaching should be rewarded financially and excellence in teaching should be recognised and renumerated accordingly.
That said, the rewards for teaching simply are not financial ones - I for one am content with my pay.
Far better would teaching be if it were regarded as a vocation rather than a "profession" and more younger teachers were given a rounded-out training which was not so leftist, egalitarian and overly-concerned with faddishness and shonky methodology.
TAC

Please TAC, remunerate us better ... but don't renumber us.

Am scratching my head attempting a mental retrieval of the SBS debate. Definitely remember being stimulated by it, so to speak. I recall being singularly unimpressed with Andrew Leigh and even more so with that dishonest b - h, Julie Bishop.
This latter individual even had the cheek that argue that federal funding of university training was adequate, rather than mutilated in the way a number of other contributors, usually experts in the education field, had indicated both previously to her outrageous comment, and then at the resumption of the discussion after she had insulted the audience's intelligence by making it.
To Mercurious, however, I offer best wishes for the future.

I believe merit pay would cause division and low morale amongst teachers.

I am in my 10th year of teaching. I am not yet at the top of the pay scale. If I added up and was paid for the *actual* hours of work that I do, the Government would not be able to afford me!

Yes, there are some 'bad apples', but there are bad apples everywhere. I believe that most teachers work hard and most do it for reasons other than the money. (Really, who in their right mind would do it for the money?)

Yes, I am a good teacher and yes I work hard. Yet, I do not want to see 'merit' pay introduced. It will end being determined on some ridiculous criteria. The people who deserve it won't get it, while people who *don't* deserve it will. It will be like the 'merit' system for promotions positions- there are certainly some executive staff who are promoted on 'merit' when they don't deserve it.

If it comes down to it- let teachers decide whether the 'merit' pay is introduced. After all, we're the one's who will be affected by it.

No teacher I have ever spoken to has expressed any desire for the performance-based pay claptrap that was actually abandoned back in the nineteenth century. Its aim is the creation of a conformist, careerist culture of exploitation, when we need strong, intelligent, independent-minded people who will speak their minds in teaching. The system cuts pay (see my comment posted on 'Failure to make the grade' on 14/9/2006 for the figures) and then offers some of it back for more work and more obedience - a lot of it of no actual use to the children we teach.

We have some performance-based elements now in Victoria. They are inefficient and ineffective - and not one child in the state is better taught because of them.

Those who advocate performance-based pay at the whim of principals need to consider some realities. I refused to betray my profession by participating in the unprofessional performance bonus system introduced by the Kennett Liberals. My then principal threatened me with the abolition of my Leading Teacher position, a threat which was eventually carried out. I escaped that school, only to find myself victimised by another principal, whom I had to take before the Merit Protection Board, which ordered my re-instatement. It is no surprise that I am horrified at the suggestion that principals should determine teachers' pay. Those who decry the poor standard of teachers need to consider that principals come from those same ranks of teachers.

The tragedy in all this is that teachers stand on the front line of civilisation - along with nurses, doctors, police and parents - and the job they are called on to do matters very much. We are used to the abuse of the ignorant, but the deprofessionalisation we have suffered is too great and the rewards elsewhere are just too attractive for some of us. I am not arguing that all teachers should receive the same pay, simply that the implementation of performance pay is almost inevitably going to lead to rewarding the sycophants and punishing the thinkers.

Any worker anywhere is at the mercy of their boss in trying to earn a pay increase. Why should teachers be any different. Those in metro areas have some ability to change schools, and those in regional areas where this may not be an option are still in the same position as others that work in regional areas (that is, either put up or move).

merit based pay is not going to weed out the bad teachers. Nor is it going to adequately reward all the good teachers. What it may do is provide a means of further reward to at least SOME of the good teachers.

Like all workable reward systems, the criteria needs to be based on long-term averages (I think the main argument for introducing this is to assist those good teachers that have hit the top of their pay system and can no longer benefit from inbuilt service increases - so establishing long term averages shouldnt be too hard in these cases). The criteria also needs to be tied to a number of performance measures. That way, a vindictive student/s couldnt be the sole cause of a teacher losing their pay increase.

I would suggest however, that merit based pay leans towards permanent pay increases, not annual bonuses. With annual bonuses, there is too much incentive to manipulate short-term results.

If a teacher is on the top bracket of pay currently, there should be a way of obtaining references over the course of their teaching career, that may signal whether or not that teacher is worthy of additional recognition in the way of a permanent pay increase above that top bracket. We are talking about a world of academics - surely someone can come up with a workable solution.

Merit based pay and key performance indicators are a waste of time and lead to unforeseen normally bad consequences. Pay people a "fair" wage and develop a cooperative collegiate workplace and you get better outcomes. Get rid of people who are incompetent and disruptive.

Have differential pay scales for some things such as rewarding people for long service or working at unpleasant jobs such as being a headmistress or working in areas where students tend to be "difficult" or locations that noone wants to go or working at mentoring or doing extra work that takes away from leisure and family time - but don't introduce competition between people into a system that requires collegiality to work well. If you want to introduce competition then introduce it in a way that the institution competes against an external entity such as another school or a set of standard benchmarks but give the reward to the whole school including the students.

The justification that Andrew Leigh gives for there being a problem is that some relative scores to the rest of the population of teachers when they were adolescents is dropping. The problem with this measure is that it is a relative score of something that may or may not have much to do with whether a person is a good teacher. It can be argued that because of the expanding work opportunities we would expect relative scores to drop not only for teachers but all professions. If it wasn't happening then there is an argument that perhaps teachers are being paid too much!

The question I have is simple:

Who determines 'merit'?

If a merit-based payrise is to be awarded after a drawn-out application process, then it is going to go to the teacher who can sell him(or her)self best, rather than the teacher who teaches best.

If it is to be awarded after analysis of academic results, then those teachers who consistently get the bottom classes (often because they are good at what they do) will miss out.

If it is to be awarded (as has been suggested in the past) by parents and P & C groups, then a very warped selection of popular teachers will receive hefty payrises but those who are unpopular - perhaps because they enforce the rules - will not. Parents often base their opinions of teachers on what their kids say.

I think I am a good teacher - and that I am worth more than I am currently paid. But I can't see a fair way of assessing the merit of teachers in Australian schools. So I will settle for what I get and look forward to my annual payrises, at least until I have taught for 10 years and reached the ceiling . . .