Thursday, May 12, 2011

Rewarding High Performing Teachers

The issue of rewarding high performing teachers with financial bonuses is not a new one.  For years now this topic has been debated and each time it comes up so too does the related issues of identifying these teachers and whether or not these bonuses will have any real impact on student learning.

I strongly agree that a great teacher can help students to achieve wonderful things, not 'just' high results on standardised tests.  I think it also worth noting that we have always had great teachers, and we will continue to have great teachers with or without the carrot of financial gain.  In fact, none of the great teachers I know and have worked with do what they do for the money.  Great teachers do what they do because they love teaching and they love working with young people and seeing them achieve their goals.  If mediocre teachers start doing good things for the sake of money are they really great teachers?  Or are they simply good at jumping through hoops to receive an external reward.

The major goal of recognising great teachers should be to improve teaching and learning, not just learning.  It stands to reason that if you improve the teaching, then the learning will also improve.  So how do we recognise great teaching and capitalise on this exemplary practice to improve teaching in schools?  Rather than hand out cash bonuses I believe we should be taking our great teachers and putting them into consulting and mentoring roles for a 12 month period.  During this time our great teachers could have the opportunity to work with many teachers, in many different classrooms, in a few different schools, therefore spreading their expertise and their exemplary practice and impacting teaching in the best possible way - growing and developing their fellow professionals.  Let's build a national professional learning network by recognising the best of the best and giving them the opportunity to do what they do best - teach!

If the government and education unions are serious about improving teaching and learning then they need to rethink the handing out of cash bonuses.  My fear is that this proposed system of merit pay will do more harm than good, actually alienating great teachers rather than putting them into the positions of respect and admiration that they deserve.  I have no doubt that the truly great teachers would jump at the chance to share their craft with their peers.