Reply #15: I like to use my high school as an example.

[Igel]

In 1977, when I graduated, it had a few hundred seniors graduate.

Four in my graduating class went to college. I'm including community college. It scored a bit below average on the standardized test. It had no calculus class, it cancelled 1st year French and 5th year Spanish. It had no AP courses, which I hadn't even heard of when I got to college. My chemistry class was covered in the first two weeks in college chemistry, my physics class was covered in the first week in college physics. It had two algebra I classes and one algebra II class. Across the county another school taught general chemistry and had a year of organic chemistry, their physics required calculus.

Teachers clawed, whined, and fought to transfer out (or they realized they were so incompetent they dared not transfer out).

Just at that time the local economy was collapsing. The primary local employer went from 35k workers to 600. By the early '80s most workers had moved or were planning on moving. As a different class of people moved in, a lot of retirees took advantage of the house prices to sell and move as well.

By 1985 my high school had AP calculus, AP chemistry and AP physics. It taught Latin and French and Spanish. 80% of the students took algebra II, and over 70% of them went to college, and I'm excluding community college.

Those teachers who remained from when I attended were the incompetent ones, and they were found ways to retire or leave. The parents had the school designated a charter school for environmental issues.

What happened? Teacher certification requirements increased? New, additional standardized tests? New teaching methods? Nope. New students. Instead of having parents who said General Math 10 was all the math you'd ever need and college was a waste of time, there were parents pushing their kids to pass the AP Calculus test and simply expecting them to go to college.

Now, my teachers could have worked harder to motivate students. They'd be fighting the culture, fighting the parents, fighting in '77 just to reach the achievement levels attained by the slacker 25% in '85. In '85 the teachers would properly focus on the minority of students who needed motivation, discipline, etc.

So, under your system, my teachers in '77 would have been punished not because of what they did, but because of the students and their backgrounds. The teachers in '85 would have been rewarded not because of what they did, but because of the students and their backgrounds. Until this kind of discrepancy is taken into account in a merit-based system, I have to say I think it's a great idea in theory, but unworkable in practice.