The merit pay myths

Today’s Washington Post has a good item about myths surrounding calls for merit pay systems.  And one of the items on the list fits with my call for “holding principals accountable.”

Check out this excerpt, on the “myth” that principals are good judges of teacher talent:

Local, state and federal spending on public school teacher salaries and benefits has reached an estimated $220 billion a year, yet the typical teacher evaluation in public education consists of a single, fleeting classroom visit by a harried principal who is often more interested in classroom behavior than quality of instruction. The result is reflected in statistics such as those in Chicago, where the nonprofit New Teacher Project found that 88 percent of the city’s 600 schools did not issue a single “unsatisfactory” teacher rating between 2003 and 2006. The absence of credible systems of evaluating teachers’ performance is a major barrier to successful performance pay plans.

Holding principals accountable is an elementary first step towards improving the performance of our schools.  The board must adopt clear expectations for our principals, and we should hold them accountable towards actualizing those goals.  When they fail, we should provide them with the constructive criticism they need to get the job done, and they should be evaluated on their ability to work towards improvement.