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Comment by rmc | Hacker News Reader

A teacher whose students consistently perform below grade level, but who jump 2 or 3 grade levels under her teaching (in the course of a year) is probably not a bad teacher.

Easy, reward the improvement in test results, not the test results. This could also encourage good teachers to go to lower performing schools (since they might see the largest gain (and hence pay rise) there).

for one, do we have a hidden reserve of these "excellent teachers", and if so, can we convince them to leave their more lucrative jobs elsewhere?

Yes, pay them more. If you are very skilled at mathematics or engineering, you might be a good maths teacher. However you can get much better money working in Google, than working as a teacher. So pay maths teachers Google level salaries. You would have to pay teachers different amounts depending on what they teach.

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Merit-based pay will never work as long as the unions and clueless administrators are in control.

In early 2002, I was working with a local high school's theatre group. Since I wasn't a parent, the rules said I had to get "hired" as a teachers' aide even though I was doing it for free.

I did the fingerprinting for the background check, provided a college transcript, and filled out the form. A month later I was rejected.

When I looked into it, I was told that I couldn't be a teachers' aide since I didn't take a college-level algebra class. In fact, I was asked "how did you get through college without taking any math?"

I pointed out that I had taken Calc 1-3, Diff Eq 1 & 2, Stats, Physics, and oh yeah had a BS in Electrical Engineering. But since I didn't have a college-level class with "algebra" in the name, I was rejected.

I didn't expect the administrators to know how to do Calc, but I did expect them to realize it was an advanced math class.

That's hilarious if true, I would assume that the majority of math teachers would have also skipped college algebra to go straight for Calc since this is pretty common today.

More appalling than hilarious. Putting even the algebra aside, by this logic the following would be forbid in this school:

-Thomas Edison assisting in a science lesson -Bill Gates helping kids learn to program -John Rockefeller teaching a business seminar -Michael Dell talking about supply chain -Walt Disney teaching an art lesson

All never obtained a college degree (save honorary ones). It would be one thing if primary education had a basis for its elitism. But instead they're failing at an increasing rate.

Merit-based pay will never work as long as the unions and clueless administrators are in control.

Agreed. Sadly. :(

i would've thought your algebra from HS would've counted for that requirement? hrmmm!

so lets remove them from control

I think this is a good point.

However, if we maintain the standardized testing, I would say also reward teachers who improve students from say 95% to 99% or keep them scoring 99%.

When I was in school, I would consistently score 98-99% on standardized tests. One of my teachers was forced by the principal of the school to apologize to my parents for not improving my scores.

Yes most of these are just tweaks. "How much reward for a X% increase?" "How much reward for an increase from Y% to Z%" etc. This can easily be adapted as time goes.

Easy, reward the improvement in test results, not the test results.

This happens now. The problem that can arise, and I remember reading that it does, is that you end up rewarding poor performing schools and teachers that only marginally improve much more than consistently well performing ones.

Rewarding teachers who work in poor performing (and usually more difficult) schools? Sounds like a benefit to me.

The rest is little details and tweaks. I agree we should reward teachers who maintain good grades.

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