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A teacher's pay should be merit-based.

Thanks again to my opponent for what continues to be an interesting and stimulating debate. I will adopt the same approach as my opponent has done in this round and begin with general arguments before moving on to specifics. My opponent and I agree that the current system of standardised testing is inherently flawed. We also both agree that the current situation where schools in more privileged socio-economic areas attract the best teachers because of higher salaries is unfair and not in the interests of improving the education of the population as a whole. I have proposed a system of equal pay with bonuses awarded to teachers who can demonstrate the most significant improvements in individuals learning, based around independent peer evaluation. I believe this would alleviate most of the problems in the education system that my opponent describes. She maintains that peer evaluation is non-viable and that the problems she outlines are tied directly to the idea of merit-based pay. It is these contentions that I will attempt to disprove in this round. "1. The peer evaluation system is not politically, logistically, or ethically viable, or at least not moreso than a standardized testing model." I believe that the fairtest.org article clearly argues that it is ethically and logistically preferable to standardised testing. As for party politics, as I suggested in the previous round these should not be allowed to get in the way of the fact that we 'should' be implementing the best policies possible. "a. It isn't universally applicable in any way: keep in mind that my opponent clearly conceded that, in order to pay a teacher based on merit, the measurement of the merit must be universally established." Sincere apologies to my opponent if I have misled her in any way, but I'm not sure what I said that suggested I conceded this fact. I don't remember arguing for a universal testing system and don't advocate one, I believe the pupils should be assessed on their individual achievements not on their conformance to a standardised grade or even curriculum. I did suggest a universal basic rate of pay for teachers (before merit-based bonuses) so maybe this is where the confusion arises. "Which teachers will assess? How will the localities be assigned assessment teachers? How will we ensure that all assessors have the same concept of how to meet educational goals?.... ....b. It isn't logistically possible: teachers are already incredibly pressed for time, especially with shrinking budgets and school years..... ....c. It doesn't solve the problem of flawed assessment systems: how will peer evaluating teachers measure academic success? Via grades? GPA? Test scores? Project results?" I don't claim to have all the answers to making peer-evaluation work, but I think the panel of independent judges assessing student performance as described in the fairtest.org article sounds like a decent model. As I said I don't necessarily support a standardised curriculum, but trained judges should be able to accurately assess whether a pupil's knowledge and academic abilities have improved without resorting to such a system and without as much opportunity for the teacher who will be rewarded being able to unfairly manipulate the results. Remember that we want teachers to be motivated to do their best to improve their students results. We just need to make sure they do this fairly. A system that rewards the bad teachers and the good the same does not motivate either to try harder. "1. I've disproved my opponents alternative as viable above. I also would like to point out his concession on accountability requiring universal standards, which is key to why his alternative cannot be successful. 2. Corruption is inherent in merit-based pay." I don't think proving that there would be difficulties in implementing something is the same as proving it non-viable, certainly not the same as proving it should not be a desired course of action. Again ,apologies but don't recall making this concession and can't find it when scanning through previous rounds. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I do not believe my opponent has proved that corruption is inherent to merit-based pay. "states were not doing this until their educational performance affected school budgets. It is directly analogous to the affect merit pay will have on individual schools and students." I see these as two distinct situations, not directly analogous at all. In my model which is just one of countless hypothetical ones you could apply, bonuses would apply to individual teachers not school or state budgets, which would be a very different case. "3. The problems of socioeconomic, ethnic, and geographic locations will still exist within that utopian plan. These problems are inherent with or without peer evaluation. There is nothing to say that a given peer evaluation team would not be a suburban team coming into a rural school, or an urban team coming into a suburban school, where the learning environment can be completely different." I think the fairtest.org article again makes it clear that for such a system to work "it is necessary to enact safeguards to ensure that race, class, gender, linguistic or other cultural biases do not affect evaluation." So there is something in my argument to say that such a situation as described by my opponent should not occur. "my scenario of teachers flocking to places where merit-based pay is far more likely will become a quick reality." Yes but in the "utopian" system these places would be exactly those where performance is lowest and are in most need of good teachers. This would ultimately be of great benefit to society as a whole, a better educated populace being more economically sound and (in theory at least) having more regard for law, order and decency. "The public will not accept, and should not accept, two classrooms of the same grade with vastly different abilities." There will always be children in every classroom with vastly different abilities. People are all better at different things. The idea of every child nationwide of a certain grade being at exactly the same level of achievement can not be a reality, so why every class? "Improvement is only a piece of achievement, as my opponent admits in his initial debate posting." Maybe this then was perceived as my concession of universal standards: "this should apply not merely to getting the highest marks or the most number of A-grades in a class but should rather be a measurement of the 'distance-travelled' by pupils." I can see how my use of 'merely' could have been misconstrued to suggest the notion of incorporating but I think 'rather' makes my real position clearer. "2. While you may think it is easy to implement, two things stand in the way of us accepting this as a possible reality" I never meant to imply it would be easy just not "monumentally expensive." The fact that something is difficult does not make it impossible and does not mean if it is a good idea we should not attempt to implement it. Due to space limitations I apologise that I can not answer my opponents last three rebuttals in this round, but if my opponent invites me to, I would be happy to display my responses in the comments section. Anyway I believe I have argued that corruption is a separate issue and not necessarily inherent to merit-based pay and that peer-evaluation while admittedly having it's difficulties could effectively diminish the spectre of corruption. Once again a teacher's pay should be merit-based. Thanks.