Teacher's comp - Page 2

@Vern - I see where you're coming from now. I must admit, that I've had a completely different experience this side of the pond. The state system, while not perfect, insists that its teachers are members of a body that ensures minimum standards, codes of conduct etc. Indeed a percentage of our salary goes to pay for our membership.

Good teachers are rewarded through promotion and the award of responsibility points, so they generally earn more than those who don't show as much 'go-get' or ambition anyway. Of course, there are always those who talk a good talk, and I'm sure there are many disgruntled teachers in many schools who believe that they deserved the promotion as opposed to their colleague, but that's human nature, not necessarily anything to do with performance.

BTW The 'ultra-right' nation was a jab. ;)

[~s.o.s~]

> Change is relative, not absolute.

But it's still good. At least for someone/something. If it weren't, it wouldn't be called change, we already have `disaster` for that. :)

Pupils lose a year or so of 'good quality' education as they act as guinea pigs

Maybe, but still doesn't tie to the topic under consideration. Though there have been numerous incidents of students losing out and getting the short end of the stick due to the so called educational "reforms", it still doesn't tie to the topic at hand. I don't think any measures taken to bring in the performance of the students as a whole in the salary equation of a teacher is going to make students lose out on anything. In fact, any change rolled out to implement the above mentioned change should be orthogonal to the way students have perceived and interacted with teachers/school.

Working around the problems I've outlined would not be a trivial matter

I never said it would be. My point being, if tying up a teachers salary (or maybe 30% of the base salary) have even a slightest chance of improving the current education system, all the teachers/parents/education committee should seriously give a collective thought to working around those *non-trivial* issues.

Believing that there would be a "change" to improve the current education system and which also would make all the teachers happy would really be an awesome pipe dream. ;)

[jwenting]

> Change is relative, not absolute.

But it's still good. At least for someone/something. If it weren't, it wouldn't be called change, we already have `disaster` for that. :)

Not necessarilly. Iran building nuclear weapons and setting one off in say Washington DC, would be a change to the current situation which, while having some positive side effects, would overall be quite bad.
And that's just one example that comes to mind.

Your selective quoting has missed my main points, but never mind.

But it's still good. At least for someone/something. If it weren't, it wouldn't be called change, we already have `disaster` for that.

That's a philosophical. Meaningless. Well rebuffed by JW.

With regard to my example of curriculum changes not being linked to the topic - no, it was just an example (*sigh*) of how poor political judgements have impacted on the pupil. I can imagine some influential suit (note the 'u' instead of the 'h'!) thinking that the next best thing for education would be something he overheard in a bar one night. Change, it has to be good, despite everything else. Sorry can't and won't agree.

Believing that there would be a "change" to improve the current education system and which also would make all the teachers happy would really be an awesome pipe dream.

Have to agree, but that's not the issue. The issue was the original premise - "should teacher's income be linked to pupil results" in the context of raising standards (paraphrased).

I could suggest a lot of reforms that would be far more effective than messing with teachers' incomes. However, as a number of these involve spending money on social inclusion, parental responsibility, fair access, social welfare, flexible hours and vacation times, etc - they are perceived to be political hot potatoes and are generally avoided.

Tinkering with a profession's pay structure seems the easiest option, but it's probably the most ineffective method in this instance.

Anyway, that's my last post on this issue, I'm going round in circles and beginning to bore myself, as well as everybody else.