Monday, November 29, 2010

Mailbag: National Standards and Merit Pay

Moataz asked:
    What are your thoughts about national standards in education and performance pay of teachers ? Do you think that these are viable options ?
@M,

Re: National Standards, I have only seen this asserted as an arbitrary without any evidence from reality to support it as a policy solution; therefore, I dismiss it out of hand. If I come across any effort to support that policy with evidence from reality, then I think I could make short work of any such effort based upon evidence and objective principle.

Re: performance pay for teachers, I take the critics at their word; the public school system is not capable of measuring performance and giving rewards based upon merit. Given the educrats' confession that they can not do so for themselves, is it any wonder that they fail to do so objectively with our students?

Re: viability of these options, in the current context of public and progressive education, these will not work. It amounts to moving the deck chairs while the Titanic is sinking. The current public debate amounts to "Given that we can't do what should be done, will tweaking these other non-critical issues resolve the problem?" Such non sequiturs are the reason why public education, and other forms of non-objective law, continuously requires "reform".

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