Tuesday, June 5, 2012

“WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN MERIT PAY” « Teachers Fight Back

“WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN MERIT PAY” « Teachers Fight Back:


“WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN MERIT PAY”

“We do not believe in merit pay” said Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewison when asked about Chicago Public Schools potentially losing a $35 million federal grant for a form of merit pay because the union won’t support the pilot program.
Karen Lewison needs to learn how to speak to the press. She continues to say things that offer ammunition to the forces that are trying to convince people that teacher unions are evil. Instead of the above quote, she should have said, ” we believe that merit pay is degrading and demeaning to teachers because it is always based on test scores and teachers should be judged on many factors in addition to test scores”.
It’s demeaning and degrading to teachers to insist that they be judged primarily by test scores. Any veteran teacher can tell people of the many valuable ways that teachers positively affect their students. If we are going to