Nearly a month ago now, Robert Reich wrote on his blog
If teachers want higher salaries, the unions are going to have to accept merit pay. Indeed, that's the whole point. Great teacher should be generously rewarded. But that also means lousy ones should be sacked.
This isn't just a bad idea, it's bad policy and it would ultimately leave a great many children behind as the best teachers fought over the best students. Like the rest of NCLB, such imprudent policy would set the stage for the wholesale destruction of the public education system. (At the point where every school is expected to have 100% of students at or above grade level in order to pass even one failing student means the entire school, and ultimately the entire system, fails. Even private schools who get to choose who they teach can't get 100%).
But why is 'merit pay' such a bad idea?