Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site cbscc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!cbosgd!cbscc!fran From: fran@cbscc.UUCP (Frank Webb) Newsgroups: net.cse Subject: Re: teacher's don't need more pay - (nf) Message-ID: <389@cbscc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 14-Nov-83 14:47:15 EST Article-I.D.: cbscc.389 Posted: Mon Nov 14 14:47:15 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 15-Nov-83 20:28:09 EST References: <3831@uiucdcs.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus Lines: 36 Bullcookies! For many teachers, the sincere desire to work with kids is only effective while they can support their families in the manner they feel they deserve. You don't get this on a teacher's salary. In many person's minds(?), the teacher is still either a part-time mother, supported by her husband's job, or a girl marking time until a Man comes along to take her away from all this. There are competents and incompetents. As long as the money is not there to squeeze out the incomps, they will find places to fill the needed teacher jobs. Look around your own area. Does one town pay more for teachers than most of the others? do they have a better reputation in education, in teacher quality? I'm bothered by the lack of some sort of merit pay arrangement, until I look at where the program would be administered. In my town, one of the better ones in ohio, the plan would probably have the administration recommending merit increases to the board of education, which must approve all funding measures. The board consists of a mixture of ax-grinders, representing the various parts of the communities, including the back-to-basics, the lets get a better football team, and the lets keep the pennies counted factions. They would probably only reward the non-innovative AK-ing representatives among the faculty. If there were a teacher, superior in every respect, but also demanding of better pay, working conditions, support from the board, etc., no way would they reward that teacher. Another reason that merit pay won't go is that the teachers are now in a union, even if they call them associations. Once they were driven into that role, by the neglect of the past, they will never come up with a suitable merit pay procedure. Frank Webb The Unruffled Sage (I married a teacher - she still teaches)