What complete and utter BS!

[Kat Kanning]

LTE from Sentinel:

Merit pay would hinder learning
   

To The Sentinel:

Merit pay for teachers has become a hot topic again, and as a teacher I feel the need to speak out. Although I realize that the impetus behind merit pay is well-intended, there are a number of issues that concern me.

My most-challenged students often resist school-based learning. I teach some deeply troubled kids ? some who are court-ordered, some with mental-health issues, some with substance-abuse problems in a system with not enough support services or alternative programs.

These classes are too large, with more than half of the students having individualized education plans. I do my best to differentiate instruction and rework curriculum; however, success for some of these students is measured by handing in one paragraph of a five-paragraph essay. For others it?s actually just making it through a whole school day without being suspended. Working with these students can be rewarding, but even on good days it is extremely challenging.

Conversely, it is my experience with upper-level students that they do anything asked: read what?s assigned, write cogent essays, recognize allusions and symbolism, make inferences, go beyond assignments given; in short, that they excel. The point is that it may be easy for teachers who work with motivated students to get them to deliver high test scores with relatively little sweat, but what about teachers who work to their fullest capacity with challenged students whose successes are not always so tangible, but no less valuable? Merit pay may motivate teachers to work only with those students whom they know will test well.

To make an analogy, how many doctors would choose to work with the terminally ill or intractable cases if they were compensated by how many of their patients survived or thrived? Teachers, like doctors, don?t control all the variables that contribute to success. Much depends also on family support and societal factors, as well as a host of other variables.

Finally, exactly how reliable are test scores that require no student accountability? The state?s test scores do not affect student grades, graduation or college admission. I have proctored tests in which students have unfortunately ?finished? two-hour tests in 10 minutes, or who have responded to writing prompts as inanely as possible.

The impact a teacher makes on students? lives is often not realized until children mature and become responsible, productive members of society and, for their contributions to that end, all teachers should be rewarded.

MARCIA CONTARINO

11 Woodside Ave.

Keene

[Russell Kanning]

The impact a teacher makes on students' lives is often not realized until children mature and become responsible, productive members of society and, for their contributions to that end, all teachers should be rewarded.

One of my favorite phrases.

[Caleb]

What I don't understand about many social liberals is this ...

They DEMAND that evolution be taught in our schools ...

But then they try to REFUTE Darwinism by their argumentation.  It seems to me that Darwinian thought would say about those people who can't even hand in a one paragraph essay or keep from getting suspended:  SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.  If you are not fit enough to graduate, then you will get a lousy job or no job at all, and will have to survive in the wild.  Since you're unlikely to have the necessary skills to survive in the wild, you will die a very early death and won't pass on your inferior genes to the next generation.

Am I missing something?  Why do we try to coddle those who aren't making it?

Caleb

[Kat Kanning]

LOL!  Darwin takes over when they graduate.