Do your teachers cheat?

In a recent article in the NY times (Do teachers Cheat on exams?)
Several states have reported with increased frequency that teachers are cheating by assisting students on exams. Why? In most cases it is because their jobs hinge on student performance. This raises an interesting question: Should merit pay for teachers be eliminated?

Many schools seem to have linked the performance of their students to an increase in teacher pay or worse, keeping a job. Is this really the way to encourage teachers to perform at their best?


Public schools are not the only schools under pressure. Many private schools -that depend on parents paying for their child's education -are demanding results. In New York, a state that requires a regents exam (a state wide subject test) the temptation to cheat, or at least accept answers that might not otherwise be accepted, is now a reality. It's simple math: private schools need students to survive, and given the economy today, every body counts.

In the public school arena, where schools post their percent pass rates in the local paper, parents are demanding results as the approve, or in many cases vote down, the school budget.  Again, the pressure to have students pass at all cost is there.

While it is important to have standards, and teachers need be accountable for their teaching, merit pay is clearly not the answer. Like any job, if you think the person doing the job is not performing to the best of their ability, fire them. Perhaps we need hold parents accountable for their children not performing to the level they would like. Of course that's a bit more difficult. Parents can't be fired.