Teacher merit pay working for Dallas

We are hearing a lot of late about Kentucky having a problem retaining teachers. The governor is proposing a blanket $2,000 per year pay increase as a way to stem the losses. But, there might be a better way to use those extra dollars, if they can even be found.

The Dallas Morning News opined today: “Teacher merit pay works. Dallas is proving it.” The Morning News says that merit pay in Dallas has been:

“...effective in changing the educational opportunities for a large number of the poor and minority students the district serves.”

The paper continues this comes from:

“...holding teachers accountable and rewarding the best and boldest with significantly higher pay.”

The Op-Ed says the Dallas school district is retaining its best teachers at rates above the state’s and the district’s retention rates before the implementation of the new policy.

Naturally, the usual status quo folks, most definitely the local and even national level teachers’ union organizations, are fussing in Dallas and the newspaper expects those status quo lovers to spend serious money to get their favored agents elected to the local school board so the merit pay policy will be dropped, but the newspaper isn’t being fooled.

So, as we have pointed out before, if you want to keep/attract good teachers, merit pay works, and Dallas now has teacher retention data to prove it.

How about looking at something similar for Kentucky – something that works – rather than just tossing more money at the same old system that really hasn’t produced much in the past 30 years since KERA was enacted? Let’s do what’s best for kids, and our best teachers, instead of just more of the same, unimaginative, old, same old.