Paying Teachers To Teach

by Jeb Bush - October 23rd, 2008 - Washington Times

Study after study shows the quality of teaching is paramount to student achievement. Next to parents, teachers are the most important factors in determining a student's academic success. Yet, instead of rewarding our best teachers and removing the poor ones, we cling to an antiquated, bureaucratic compensation model that is flawed at its core.

Most teachers are paid based on their level of education and tenure. However, history proves that rewarding teachers for the number of years in the system rather than the effectiveness in the classroom actually diminishes the quality of education. Many successful teachers leave the system because their paychecks don't reflect their hard work. Poor teachers, on the other hand, often remain in the classroom, ensconced in a system under the protection of a union that cares more about workers' rights than student achievement.

As a result, and despite spending more per student than our competitors, our students and schools have fallen behind their peers across the globe - and will continue to fall unless we reverse course.

This is only going to change when more parents start to realize that their children's future is being sold out in favor of fat salaries for highly paid education union officers and central administration educrats who don't teach, but simply "think" about teaching.

A key element in changing this is to get through to parents that it is not a matter of money. We spend more than enough money. We simply spend it in the most stupid and incompetent manner so the results ... and our children ... are what suffer. Only when we can get people to start worrying about the waste, misdirection and corruption of the current politicized school system is anything going to change.