31. Teacher's salaries should be based on their student's academic performance.

31. Teacher's salaries should be based on their student's academic performance.

Agree:
- Encourages teachers to work harder
- Provides higher quality of teaching
- A teacher's role is to teach and thus their salary should be based on it and not their working hours.

Disagree:
- Teachers can't control which kids enter their classrooms
- Test-based pay is more useful politically than effective educationally.
- In an authoritative study by Vanderbilt University, there is no more student improvement with merit pay.
- Performance pay will NOT attract strong teachers but may actually drive teachers away. For teachers, money is second to working conditions (ie, supportive environment, such as time for collaboration).
- Intensifies anxiety surrounding test-taking
- Increases pressure to focus on test-taking skills and content tests cover, inhibiting creativity and innovation

Solution: Finland- reduced class size, increases teachers' salaries, eliminated standardized testing