Merit pay for teachers

Imagine this- actually paying teachers based on merit. Just like the rest of us.

Patrick McIlheran cracks me up sometimes-



Mark Green, apparently figuring that if you’re going to tick off the teachers’ union, you might as well fire for effect, proposes some pretty cool ideas for education.

He suggests expanding school choice, raising the income limits so even more parents can take their state school aid with them when they opt for something other than the local government-run school. He suggests expanding it to all of Milwaukee County.

He also suggests letting MPS teachers live outside Milwaukee if they’d like, finding a way to pay teachers based on how well they teach, and letting any UW campus set up a charter school.

Look for gasping outrage, of course, from those who dislike the idea of parents in charge of education. Doyle’s spokesman — Doyle, in case you didn’t know, has long been a favored client of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the teachers’ union that ran ads for him and has endorsed him — anyhow, his spokesman knee-jerked that Green’s ideas would “cut thousands of teachers.”

Uh, no. If parents can take their state school aid with them to some other school, there will be teachers there, as well, teachers the parents prefer. The only ones who really have to worry are teachers that parents don’t prefer.