Nerve Endings Firing Away

Florida has just passed legislation that will pay teachers on how well their kids do on standardized tests. Is this market approach to education, or least to motivate teachers correct? I think not. Although I am largely in favor of market-oriented techniques to improve efficiency, I am not of that libertarian bent so as to approve such mechanisms that will definitely fail. Benefits of educations are well documented and people generally prefer going to school rather than not. We scarcely hear of individuals who do not attend school or refuse to be educated because they rather not. It is also generally accepted that not all students would perform at par and standardized test results, if any indicator of the school’s success is related to factors more than a teacher’s ability. Simply by paying teachers more, it will not be possible to improve standardized scores because it is based on a spurious association.

One more thing, have teachers chosen their profession for monetary reasons? Probably not; because we are aware that such jobs although highly skilful and necessary do not pay well or at least not well enough to attract individuals into their fold based on monetary reasons. Some individuals might be in it for the money because it beats out other alternatives but small-scale monetary incentives are not going to make such individuals perform any better to achieve the desired results.