Bad Teacher, Breast Augmentation, and Merit Pay
by Frederick M. Hess • Jun 29, 2011 at 8:28 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
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ShareAs I wrote Monday, I dug the new film Bad Teacher. This kind of black comedy (think of Billy Bob Thornton'sBad Santa) scrapes away familiar sentiment and can permit funny, unnerving--and frequently revealing--glimpses of human nature. Take the movie's treatment of merit pay. Cameron Diaz's "bad teacher," having been dumped by her fiancée, decides she needs plastic surgery if she's to land a wealthy husband. Lacking the $10k she needs, she pockets cash from an R-rated middle school car wash and bribes from parents at parent-teacher night. When she learns that there's a $5,700 cash bonus for the teacher at John Adams Middle School whose class scores highest on the state test, she turns from a burnout serial-movie-shower into a motivated (if inept, mean-spirited) instructor.
As my friends at NCTQ have pointed out, the merit pay scheme in question bears little resemblance to what actually exists. Far more interesting, though, are the truths it tells about merit pay. After all, today's vaunted
