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Flypaper

Merit pay for the meritorious?

7.17.2008

Candidates Obama and McCain have both spoken about their support??for merit pay for teachers. NPR's Morning Edition wondered if such pay plans actually work, so??reporter Larry Abramson went to Colorado to find out.??

After interviewing a teacher who has benefited financially from??merit pay, but who doesn't believe the bonuses have actually improved her teaching ability, Abramson asks:

This raises another question: Is performance pay working if it just rewards teachers who are already doing a good job?

Wow. Can we imagine such a question being applied to another professional field? Is performance pay working if it just rewards LeBron James when he's already doing a good job? If NPR's reporters??have handy??a dictionary, and they must, they might want to check out the definitional passage below the word??incentive.??

Tags: Barack Obama Colorado National Public Radio
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