Merit Promotion
The Age Friday, May 22, 2009
The Brumby government is to be praised for aiming to raise performance incentives in schooling. The standard of schooling in some suburbs denies those children any chance of opportunity through education.
The teaching profession needs a boost in status. Under the present sheltered workshop model, all it takes to reach the highest level of teacher pay is to not die. Merit promotion will increase performance and attract a wider range of recruits.
The unions will try anything to avoid this. I warn the state government not to be thrown off the scent by “independent panels [assessing] exceptional classroom practice, knowledge of the curriculum, or professional development” (Age, May 21).
If any of these parameters are fair dinkum, they will result in improved student outcomes – for which there is now objective testing. This is how teacher merit should be recognised. So-called “independent panels” do not exist in the highly politicised school industry.
Philip O'Carroll