Tipping Teachers

In this morning's Dallas Morning News, it was reported that the $300 million spent to encourage teachers here in Texas, and thereby improve student achievement, hasn't worked out. Despite the money, student academic performance has not improved. Some attribute this to the fact that the bonuses offered were not enough. Others asserted the poor results were due to the fact the money was spread to thin and resulted in incentives too small to motivate teachers. In essence, teachers were not offered enough money to motivate them to do what they are already being paid to do.

In some professions it is customary to offer bonuses to improve service. One tips a waiter, a doorman, or a parking valet to encourage them to do their job with more enthusiasm. One does not offer bonuses to policemen or fireman for doing thier job well because they are expected to do the job they are paid to do to the best of their ability. One does one expect a policemen, a fireman to do their job poorly because they feel they are not being paid enough. If one is robbed, or one's house burns down, for the police or the fire department to claim that it was the result of poor pay and lack of motivation would not be accepted as an excuse.

To blame the unfortunate state of public education in the United States on poor teacher pay is also unacceptable. Teachers choose their profession. They know what they can expect to be paid. To take the job and then blame their lack of enthusiasm and effectiveness on a lack of financial incentive is a cynical attempt by the teachers unions to shift attention from the sad state of education in the U.S. today. It also creates a mercenary aspect to a profession that has traditionally prided itself as a calling.

The mechanical pedagogy and standardized curriculum increasingly prevalent in public schools today is a practice almost guaranteed to produce little enthusiasm on the part of students and teachers and so produce poor results. To treat education as simply a body of facts and set skills to be transmitted by people whose credentials are based more on methodology than knowledge, is to stultify education. Education is an activity that should be participated in by both the teacher and the student. It is not an object to be given and received.

Treating education as a body of facts to be learned according to a standardized method has the appeal of objectifying education and making it more amenable to measure and manipulation; both of which in turn have an appeal to a nation preoccupied with statistics and standards. They also have an appeal to a profession increasingly sensitive to criticism, for it allows blame to be shifted from how well they perform their jobs, to the standards and conditions they are "forced" to practice under.

Many private schools operate with teachers paid far less than public school teachers and a fraction of the resources available to public schools. That private schools are able to select their students is little excuse. Many public schools perform well. Not all public schools are struggling with low achievement. For those schools that are struggling with low achievement, to blame low pay and lack of incentive is more a reflection on the teachers in those schools than the teacher's unions might care to admit.

There are many reasons behind the poor performance of students in schools these days. Teacher motivation is but one. Even if the desired effect of motivating teachers through paying incentives is achieved, it is unlikely it will do anything to motivate students or parents. Very few of the problems faced by schools can be redressed by simply paying teachers more.