Schools can't be set up like a business. They deal with children. Children don't run businesses nor are they all
going to learn in the same way at the same child. Telling a child he or she has failed and must go back strikes me as pretty cold hearted. Schools don't deal with automatons. They deal with handicapped children, children from broken homes, children who can't speak English, children with reading problems
If you can find a one size fits all solution to all this, I am sure educators would be grateful.

Could yo be clearer-what attitudes of American educators are"feeding the problem"?

I am a teacher. I believe that the idea of teacher bonuses is ridiculous. Children aren't cars. You can't force them into prizewinning vehicles. Every class of students is different. Many students now come to school with little ability to read English. Many students don't perform well because of home issues .
The ability to put the right mark in the right circle has never been a sign of an educated person. If I was a young teacher supporting a family I would force my students to work and work on test taking. I might even be mote interested in test results than in my students. I think rewarding teachers for teaching test taking skills is in no way going to help students
in the long run. It might even make teachers unwilling to deal with struggling students.I think it might be a good idea to consult educators who have been named Teacher of zThe year. They know what iti s to teach. I am not sure congress does.

When teachers are losing upwards of 25/30/40% or more on the classroom time, it's grossly UNFAIR to tie compensation to performance. Especially when teachers aren't all given methods by which they can better control their classrooms.

How can you say, reasonably, that "you'll get a bonus for how well your students do" when they don't have the ability to impact the kids' learning? If you have a classroom that's losing a great deal of productive learning time because of lack of discipline, and don't give teachers an effective way of handling it, then you're unfairly penalizing the teachers for not "achieving."

You can't assume that all teachers learn how to manage their kids effectively either. Classroom disruption is a serious problem in our schools and one of the primary reasons teachers leave the profession.

no, a teacher can not FORCE a student to learn in a classroom. Student learning has to be motivated by parents and community. a teacher is only a small part of the motivation. a teacher is with the child a small percentage of the time. Learning has to be reinforced at home. Homework. Most kids don't do it. we have taken away all power that schools have in discipline, and accountability. Parents are the only ones that can hold students accountable. If anyone is going to be rewarded or punished when their child succeds or fails it is the parent, not the teacher.

The question is more complicated than yes or no. Under the current system, I would have to answer that putting an incentive program in place, of any sort, would only exacerbate an already "broken" system.
The only way an incentive program could possibly help is if the students' academic performance was measured by someone other than the person training the student for academic performance.
(I can hear the outcry against standardized tests as I type this - but that is NOT what I am referring to!)
As mentioned by another respondent, using a capitalist business model might help, but only if implemented in all aspects.
Businesses use both internal and external auditors to measure their own performance, and they also have the benefit of an immediate measurement tool - sales.
If the primary goal of schools is to prepare students for future success in a career or in the workplace, then the primary goal can only be measured in terms of *decades*, which is *entirely* different than quarterly (or sometimes monthly) earnings reports.
Bonuses based on performance that occurred over a decade ago will simply not entice very many people.
So, testing supplies a substitute for measuring successful performance. However, having the test administered by the very person whose performance is being measured is not acceptable within the realm of common business practices. It is very useful for making internal changes, though.
I do not know if it would even be possible to structure something that would make sense to base an incentive on, unless some fundamental changes were made in the educational practices that American schools use.

As an example of a change that COULD be made - in Japan, a class of students stays in the same room for most of the day (until club meetings in the afternoon) - there, the *teachers* move from classroom to classroom as the class periods change! (I am referring to middle-school grades and up, obviously.)
That may *seem* unrelated, but it is a VERY related issue that points toward the underlying attitudes of American educators that are feeding the problem.

Using a capitalist idea to fix a system that is not structured as capitalist will ultimately cause more problems than it fixes.

No. Teachers cannot be held responsible for what happens outside their classrooms . Instead, schools or school districts should be rewarded for becoming more creative in getting ALL PARENTS and/or guardians involved in 1) ensuring their children are ready to learn; 2) gettting children ready for school every day; 3) backing up the learning standards and expectations in schools. Teachers are not miracle workers. They too often must also become social workers. Too much blame is being put on teachers. I strongly encourage critics to spend just one day volunteering or simply observing in their child's school. Take a pre- and post- test of their attitudes. Remember, those are YOUR kids on those classrooms.

I agree with *experience*

You should not base a teachers merit on student achievement. Teachers cannot control all factors involved in a students learning environment. The student may be limited by economic factors, environmental factors, work ethic and many other factors. Teachers would want to hand pick their classes to get the students they know are capable of rapid achievement. What would this do to our low achievers? I believe the drop out rate would be greatly increased for students and for the teaching profession.

Yes and no. I am an extremely hands-on Mom and based strictly on what I have seen because of the "no child left behind" law, teachers are passing/pushing kids through that are so below grade level it's astonishing! I am not talking about squeaking them by with C's, but by going over tests, letting them correct them in class after giving them the answer and then recording it as 100%!!! Schools need to be set up like a business, after each grade, students should be required to take an exit or entrance test in order to go to the next grade. Students who fail the basics, need to be held back and those teacher need to be looked at for their teaching skills. Teachers should be rewarded based on how many students are actually prepared for the next grade level that they themselves taught.

Yes, teachers should be awarded a bonus based on students' academic progress. This gives them incentive to perform at higher levels and it reinforces our committment to educating our children by paying more for better outcomes/teachers. Outcomes is where the rubber meets the road. We need teachers who can deliver a quality education to our students. These teachers should be rewarded monetarily for this, just like people in other professions are rewarded monetarily for excelling in their jobs. This is a bonus and has nothing to do with base pay. It is a reward that says, we appreciate your extra effort in ensuring our children are getting the quality education they deserve. We want to show our appreciation by compensating you accordingly. This seems to work in many other businesses, and I think it is an objective means of measurement and is well deserved for those teachers who have proven their effectiveness. I love the idea!

Add me to the "me too."

The way veteran teachers choose their assignments in really great school communities, and new/young teachers are left to the dregs, I can't see how you can reward a teacher based on the student's academic progress.

If it's based on improvement, how could a teacher improve a school that is already way above average? That's not exactly fair either.

The biggest frustration as all this hypothesizing goes on is that there are kids languishing in really cruddy schools, and kids continuing to thrive in phenomenal ones. How can we convince great teachers to share what they know and teach communities to demand schools that are like that?

I have to agree with healthy. How could you really gage on how good a teacher is? Every child learns differently and at a different pace. That doesn't make the teacher good or bad. He/She might have a student that struggles and maybe that child has learned but still not performing by "standards". This is in no way making this teacher a bad teacher. I just don't think their is an effective way to do this.

First, you have a problem in deciding how to determine if a child is making progress, and I don't believe grades or standardized testing results give adequate information, so it should NOT be a large factor in teacher's pay. Every child deserves to move forward from wherever they start on the learning curve...It is not appropriate for a teacher to get all the credit for a student who is self-motivated and came into a classroom with the ability to pass a standardized test from "day 1," nor is it fair for a struggling child to be considered a failure if a teacher isn't using appropriate methods of instruction. (Curriculum is usually chosen at a district level, not by individual teachers.)

Granted, a lousy teacher, even when provided with good curriculum, will still not be effective, but I think it's a mistake to look at one set of standardized test scores of a given class and try to decide if that class has a good teacher, or to decide if students are making good progress. For justification of why grades don't provide a good measure of academic progress, either, I've seen two teachers look at the same essay that a student wrote, and one will grade it as an "A" while the other may give it a "C." Teachers who know in advance that their pay is tied to student grades may artifically inflate them, so that's not a good method to use, either.