Two students. One teacher.

[LanternWaste]

Two students. One teacher.

One student receives an A+ and is school valedictorian. The other student receives an F. Is the student's success/failure to be fully credited to/blamed on the teacher alone, or are there many other, wholly subjective factors completely outside of the teacher's own obligation involved in the academic career of the student?

If the second case is true and we argue for merit-based pay for educators, precisely how are those other factors both objectively measured, and then quantitatively factored in?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Obviously that's an average teacher.

[LanternWaste]

2. It does beg the question...

It does beg the question...

"precisely how are those other factors both objectively measured, and then quantitatively factored in?"

[Dinger]

3. Concise And To The Point

Good post.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. That's why merit pay isn't really fair

I taught in a small town and also in a large city. In both cases, I had classes where kids weren't performing--because of matters at home. I still remember one mother who came in and told me her dog was better than her piece of trash son--and the kid was 9 years old. His self esteem was non-existent and he saw no reason to do anything, because his mom had taught him he would always be a failure. Another kid came to school angry, and one day took after another kid with a baseball bat, sending the kid to the hospital with a concussion. I still don't know why charges weren't pressed--the attacker came to school and I was told to teach the class and not both the principal or vice principal--they had bigwigs to schmooze that day. The whole class was ready to erupt into violence the entire day. They were 10 year olds.

No, I wouldn't have gotten "merit pay"--but my question is, would it have been my fault? I sometimes think government and the public expect public school teachers to be miracle workers--and don't want to take any responsibility for helping raise our nation's children.