In our small community, we have a small number of teachers. I have seen many teachers come and go, with the select few that grew up here and will stay indefinitely. Recruiting teachers to this town has presented challenges to us. Keeping teachers is even more difficult. Once they are here, they find a paying job in the close by city. It is unfortunate we are losing the some of the best teachers we have.
Merit pay is an idea that may overcome some of these issues. It would attract better teachers to the career; keep the best teachers around, while the worst ones leave the field. It would also encourage current teachers to improve themselves.
This issue is of great concern, even having a place in the presidential race. Hillary Clinton recently stated that merit pay is a bad idea because it would be unclear who would pay the bonuses, while her opponent, Obama feels merit pay is definitely the way to go.
Currently, there are about 19 states that practice incentive based pay plans for teachers and Missouri needs to join them. Our teachers may need more incentive to increase performance. It is a very difficult, yet rewarding job, but incentive could only make them better. Our town desperately needs this to keep our great teachers around. Big cities have more things to offer than we do, so we need some enticement to keep them here.
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