1. “performance” is measured in multiple ways. Test scores only cover certain subjects, and have dubious value, especially in isolation, and especially at the secondary level, once many students stop caring.

2. Evaluation procedures and “performance” must be well-defined through a collaborative process involving teachers and administrations.

Someone above mentioned Denver’s Pro-Comp system, which is not the only model of its kind, but worth studying. Teachers have some say in establishing goals and measures of effectiveness, but not total autonomy.

Think of performance pay as leverage and incentive for teachers to work differently, not harder. Teachers need more roles and more opportunities to improve learning, and performance pay can be attached to a system that differentiates the work we do and the pay we earn, based on differences in skills, experience, preparation, leadership, mentorship, other added roles, etc.

I do not accept that “not forced to consume” equals “deprived of”. Do you like classical music? I love classical music (broadly speaking: Gregorian Chant through Ralph Vaughan Williams). I do not play any instrument, cannot read musical notation, and I will clear a room if I try to sing, but I love to listen. I know three people who actively dislike classical music. They all were made to study piano as children.

(Ms. Cornelius): “Why should we acquiesce in not shoving Hamlet down an “unwilling throat” but insist on shoving the Pythagorean theorem down that same throat? We need to ask why students don’t understand why Hamlet– or understanding the factors behind decline and fall of the Roman Empire– is absolutely contemporary and relevant.”

“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly. –Albert Einstein–
“Autobiographical Notes,”
__Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist__
Paul Schilpp, ed. (1951), pp. 17-19 (© 1951 by the Library of Living Philosophers, Inc.)

“There is too much education altogether, especially in American schools. The only way of educating is to be an example–of what to avoid, if one can’t be the other sort.” –Albert Einstein–
__The World As I See It__, p.22 (Citadel Press).

“Give into the power of the teacher the fewest possible coercive measures, so that the only source of the pupil’s respect for the teacher is the human and intellectual qualities of the latter.” –Albert Einstein–
__Ideas And Opinions__, p. 61, (Three Rivers Press).

The ones who pointed out that current teachers are doing their best were closest.

Higher pay isn’t for existing teachers, it’s to attract their replacements.

“If we asked a teacher, ‘If we pay you more, will you teach better?’ what would they say? Probably, ‘I’m teaching as well as I can now.’”

Sure, but is that any different from how the average factory worker or union plumber would answer?

But if instead of taking peoples’ self-reporting at face value, we could observe (undetected) a wide variety of teachers who gave that answer, we’d find:

* Some who really were, and were in fact doing a good job at that level of effort.

* Some who really weren’t, but could do a good job if the were putting in the effort (i.e. they are lazy or otherwise unmotivated)

* Some who maybe really were working at the peak of their potential, but if so you’d wish they’d go do something else instead.

This phenomenon is of course by no means confined to education. I suspect it’s actually universal (in my own field of software development there is widely considered a 10x or even higher difference between the best and the merely adequate.)

And it’s “cuneiform” (meaning “wedge-shaped”), the English and social studies teacher in me fells compelled to point out. And students deprived of knowledge of literature and history end up being incapable of analysis of language at higher levels, such as developing facility at interpreting verbal input or being able to analyze and detect biased material in, say, that same newspaper you mentioned in your thought experiment.

Why should we acquiesce in not shoving Hamlet down an “unwilling throat” but insist on shoving the Pythagorean theorem down that same throat? We need to ask why students don’t understand why Hamlet– or understanding the factors behind decline and fall of the Roman Empire– is absolutely contemporary and relevant.

It would be interesting to see the repercussions of that.

So, states typically remove special ed funds and special ed pupils from the totals to arrive at the published cost per pupil figure.

Which is a valid methodology, but most people don’t understand that. They simply divide the total district budget by the total number of students and then complain that the district spends too much money per pupil.

You have stumbled upon one of the greatest problems in education. We know almost nothing about how much students’ “learning” has stayed with them. Partly for practical reasons, schools don’t try to measure any knowledge that is more than nine and a half months old.

What little we do know–from tests given by various organizations–indicates that students take very very little subject matter knowledge from their courses.