One wonders what budget the performance bonuses for all public sector workers, not only teachers, would come from.

I understand that the rate at which an organisation advances mostly depends on how quickly information spreads throughout that organisation. If something is found to work successfully, and information about this is quickly spread to others in that organisation, then more people will begin to use something that is known to successfully work, and the organisation takes a step forward.

However the education system is not working successfully, and is gradually going backwards. Girl’s marks have hardly improved in 30 years, while boy’s marks have declined in that time period.

So another way of paying teachers is to base pay increases on overall student performance in a state or nationally. Benchmark tests are undertaken, and all teachers are paid according to student outcomes. If student’s throughout a state or nationally perform badly, then no teacher gets a pay increase.

This system would encourage overall improvement in student outcomes, would encourage innovation, and would also encourage teachers to communicate between themselves and pass on information of what works successfully and what doesn’t.

Teachers do not have control over the education of students that is in the hands of the politicians and bureaucrats. It is people like Julie Bishop who over a generation have reduced the relative value of teaching as a profession, vastly inflated the expectations for the profession and failed to match these with real funding increases, and chop and change educational policies with political game playing designed to reinforce a supposed "values" position for Bishop.

Performance pay is not about education it is about Bishop playing to her political base.

Others than HRS may more fully appreciate that the author has a set of interesting and well-argued points concerning teacher pay, status and results.

As for the solution suggested by HRS, pay for results on standardised tests, there is no assurance that such an intervention will address the cause of declining achievement scores. It is unsafe to assume that the decline is due to teacher performance, when the classrooms are subject to outside influences such as school management styles, school system policies, funding support, technological transfer and and changing family patterns.

Most readers will recognise that focusing on the teacher, and arguing that pay for results on standardised tests will solve the problem of declining test scores, is fatal oversimplification.

I for one did not send my children to school so that they could concentrate on getting top scores on standardised tests.

Particularly in high school, students have the opportunity for a wide range of social involvements. Most of these will relate far more directly to their adult experience than the skill of doing well in a "test environment". Educators address the problem of balancing their students loads with a broad perspective and an understanding of children built over their years of experience.

I would hate to see a narrow focus on training a class to do well on tests, in any school. Very few people in the real world get paid for such a bizarre task. What would all this testing prepare children for, beyond doing the same job? I for one could not admire such a teacher/trainer, or take much interest in their struggles.

The long-term cuts to teacher pay have been huge.

Victorian male average weekly ordinary time earnings were $1107.30 ($57,777 pa) in November last year (ABS 6302.0, November 2006).

In 1975, a beginning teacher was paid 118.8 percent of MAOTE. That equates to $68.639. A beginning teacher started this year on $46,127 - a relative cut of $22,512 or 32.8 per cent. To put it another way, a first-year-out teacher needs a salary increase of 48.8 per cent to restore the relative value of that salary to what it was 32 years ago.

In 1975, after seven years a teacher reached the top of the scale and was paid 166.6 per cent. That would be $96,256 at the start of this year, compared with an actual $57,775 - a relative cut of $38,481 or 40 per cent. To put it another way, an eighth-year-out teacher needs a 66.6 per cent salary increase to restore the relative value of that salary to what it was 32 years ago.

The new top level for most teachers, which now takes eleven years to reach, paid $65,414 – a relative cut of $30,842 or 32 per cent. To put it another way, a twelfth-year-out teacher needs a 47.1 per cent salary increase to restore the relative value to that of an eighth-year-out teacher 32 years ago.

In 1975, a senior teacher was paid 189.8 per cent. That would be $109,660 for the highest paid leading teacher today, who was actually paid $78,675 at the start of this year – a relative cut of $30,985 or 28.3 per cent. To put it another way, a leading teacher needs a salary increase of 39.4 per cent to restore the relative value of the senior teacher’s salary to what it was 32 years ago. There was only one level of senior teacher pay. There are six levels for leading teachers and the lowest of these is $68,362 – a relative pay cut of $41,298.

The decline in principal salaries is similar but much more complicated because they are on salary packages with ranges and bands.

To Chris C - I am the author of the article (see article for contact details) and I take your point about the Victorian System. Being from NSW I certainly did not know the details of how the levels worked,, but did think that, in theory at least, it provided a model for rewarding the mature classroom teacher. Of course, in the end it comes down to how much money governments are going to invest in education - and teachers in general are so altruistic that they will not let what they are paid divert them from doing their best for students. I will reply to other contributors after a few days. Ian Keese