I'll go first, if you don't mind.

Lars is paid according to His performance. Even if you do not like what he says he's compensated by advertisers who must like the return on their investment.

No listeners, No advertising, NO Lars.

That's why Air America, Crickets, has met their level of compensation for performance.

It's that simple.....

Why don't you? Have an on line vote.

I'll start it off with a secret ballot vote that is unlike what your brethren in the unions want. I believe it's called "card check"?

( ) Lars's salary is none of (y)our business ( ) Vote on what Lars's bosses should pay him

I don't plan to vote for any Bill Sizemore initiative.

But I certainly hope that our state legislature will, in 2009, craft a law requiring "merit pay" for teachers, along with a solid regulatory system for implementing it to prevent abuse, either by "teaching to the test" or allowing Superintendents to play favorites (the two arguments I've heard from teachers' unions that actually have some merit on this issue).

One of the reasons we have a shrinking middle class is that our educational system is failing a lot of our students, who don't get the skills needed to prosper in today's economy. It's not all convenient corporate greed.

Vagaries? Please. The private sector always has had to deal with the "vagaries", politics, performance, etc. People get let go all the time because they don't get along with the boss. YOU should at least agree that the current system could use some major help. As far as economics, factoring in the best benefits on earth, coupled with an absolutely incredible retirement package on PERS, teachers are doing fine. Pay for length of service is not good for our students, period, and no one should have a guaranteed job just because they work at a school. Academic tenure k-12 is not needed or wanted.

As far as Sizemore, do you all believe the teachers unions "were forced to spend $2 million to defeat" the measure that got on the ballot? That was the largest SLAPP suit in history. The judge actually thought the teachers union could and did affect peoples opinion? And we were all "saved" by them? Total BS.

The oppostion to merit pay for teachers appears to be, primarily, this ongoing farce that there's no way to measure teacher performance. That ANY effort to do so, even by principals and/or other immediate administrators is unfair. Therefore forget about it.

Come on. The teacher's union contracts are chuck full of things that have no business being included and result in administration hands being tied on routine mangement controls.

Google found:

"Despite the opposition, eight states – Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas – already have statewide performance-pay plans, and several school districts, notably Denver and Houston, have their own programs. The federal government also has been encouraging merit pay; last year the U.S. Department of Education distributed $99 million in grants to help a handful of districts and schools set up programs.

Some of the state plans have navigated rocky paths. Last year, Florida created Special Teachers Are Rewarded (STAR), a $147.5 million program mandatory for all school districts to give bonuses to the top 25 percent of teachers based on evaluations and student test results. Teachers opposed the cap, which they said pushed teachers to compete, not collaborate.

In March, the state scrapped STAR and enacted the Merit Awards Program (MAP), which allows teachers to earn bonuses in teams and has no cap on how many teachers can benefit. But MAP, which also relies largely on test results, isn’t proving to be much more popular. Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the Florida Educators Association, the state union, estimates that only about a quarter of districts will choose to implement the program this school year.

Texas has the country’s largest program; by the 2008-09 school year, the state plans to spend at least $320 million on teachers’ merit pay. Matthew Springer, president of the National Center on Performance Incentives, which researches merit-pay programs, said Texas has faced less opposition than Florida has because schools were given more freedom on how they set up their programs. Out of more than 1,100 low-income schools that qualified for a state program, only about 60 chose not to participate last year.

But the state teachers union there opposes the program, again because of its heavy reliance on test scores. The union helped convince the Texas House to defy its Republican leadership and vote in March to scrap money for merit pay in favor of an $800 raise for every teacher. That plan failed in the state Senate, however, and merit-pay money eventually was restored.

Merit pay for teachers is not a bad idea categorically. The problem is devising a system that is fair and improves the education delivered. Basing pay on test scores would, I fear, promote teaching to the test, not a good thing. Giving principals the power to set salaries would risk injecting a toxic dose of office politics into schools.

Since Lars spends so much time obsessing about merit pay, one would think he would have come up with some interesting ways of implementing the idea.

Paul g, it may be pure partisanship, but not entirely unjustified. Plenty of conservatives want to gut school spending, and merit pay could easily be a back door to doing so.

"Since Lars spends so much time obsessing about merit pay, one would think he would have come up with some interesting ways of implementing the idea."

8 states already have statewide performance-pay plans.

If 45 states implement merit pay plans I suppose you'd still pretend "Lars" has to come up with a plan for Oregon?

I'm all for a discussion of specific proposals--the Toledo Ohio evaluation of teachers (which keeps good teachers and weeds out those who should leave, without a lot of bureauacracy), or the Denver, Colo. merit pay system, for instance. Let's go beyond talking points!

But I have had it up to HERE with the attitude where a school district posts multiple criteria for evaluating teachers on their website, but then a school board member says that isn't necessary for administrators because "we evaluate administrators by results" as if no more specific criteria are necessary.

All those who think they have all the answers (or use broadbrush terms like "what the teachers union says" )should spend a day in an elementary school and find out what schools today are really like.

But what do I know--all I did was work in before/after school child care at an elementary school. I know what actual school kids are like. Some of them are very bright but might have discipline problems. How do you propose to evaluate the teachers of such kids---more testing, observation by administrators (yes, many can tell you from experience that happens, and I don't mean just teachers--sometimes parents are upset that the teacher who made a difference in their child's life is transferred or fired for reasons they don't understand) or some other measure?

Let's see Lars spend a day in a school (as an observer, not a pontificator). Years ago Phil Walker took up a teacher on that challenge and found it physically and mentally challenging to have to interact with smart kids.

Lars does have objective criteria to determine his salary.

Must I repeat that advertising revenue/ratings based on the content and quality of his work, which is constantly evaluated by others, IS objective criteria.

Lars is therefore paid very well, I would imagine, by his employer based upon the objective criteria of his employer.

If teacher got merit pay like the private sector, then they would be getting golden parachutes when they were canned.

"Pay for length of service (i.e. experience) is absolutely routine in the business world."

Sure, that's exactly why htey hire fresh college grads at 40-% cheaper than 20-year employees who have never bothered to learn any new skills or increase their contribution.

For all of the people against the merit pay proposal how do we improve poor teachers and encourage good ones? Right now it doesnt make a diff if you do good or poorly - same pay. You really need some objective measure of performance to determine who is doing well.

As far as not liking tests, life is nothing but a series of tests from job interviews to presentations to justify projects to performance to milestone to get new funding.

Lar's salary is only based on the 'popularity' of his show with listeners/sponsors in enabling the station to make money. What his salary is not based on is the 'quality' of his show. He just has to have an acceptable number of listeners to attract enough ads to pay the bills.

Teachers would not be graded on the quality of their work, but on the test results which can influenced by a wide variety of uncontrollable outside factors. To teach to the test is not education no matter what the 'test' results show.

Of course, Lars couldn't control what a colossal dolt Bush was either. To carry water for him the last seven and a half years was hard work. Hard, it's hard, hard work..........

BTW, anyone know what Lars makes? Does the station actually make money or is it just another losing propaganda program underwritten with conservative money like the first ten years of Faux News?

Thanks for the discussion, but the central argument is moot.

Principals, including PPS, do yearly performance reviews on teachers. Then, the principal can judge the teacher to need some work and put them on a plan to help them for a year. If the teacher does not get better, the next year, they can fire them. Period.

But, most principals don't know a good teacher when they see one or don't want to bother with the paperwork on a "bad" one.

And it's a teeny, tiny problem.

Now, the $8,000,000,000 or so missing from the No Child Left Behind Act, well, that's worth talking about.

Next time, right Lars?

Lars?

As a teacher, I would need to pick my curriculum and have control over how I teach the classroom - even as far as where and how children are seated. That is often not possible as principals can dictate seating and school districts/school boards dictate curriculum.

Trust me, this is not an easy problem to solve.

One way might be have a national curriculum so that teachers can pick their own curriculum and get trained in it in order to get better results. Another is to stop state standards and just have an exit exam at 12th grade - that way what get taught and how doesn't matter as much. Not a great way around the problem of giving the teacher the ability to use scientifically validated curriculum without getting fired, let alone getting a raise.

And I live in Oregon - the home of the best curriculum around but you can't use it!

Carla thanks for posting on this topic.

If racketeer Sizemore or liars Larsen were actually interested in improving public school education for Oregon's children then they wouldn't be promoting the ballot measure at all.

Perhaps they would be engaged in the kind of constructive exchange of views in some of the comments above. If merit pay for teachers is a good idea then let the legislature hear testimony from all involved and craft a bill that needs majorities in two house and the Governor's signature as well.

In actual fact Bill and Lars are both motivated out of spite for organized working people who have the gall to stand up for themselves and have opposed them both for years.

Full disclosure: I am not an educator of any kind, nor do I have children of any age! I am a life long Union member.

• Pedro -

Carla thanks for posting on this topic.

If racketeer Sizemore or liars Larsen were actually interested in improving public school education for Oregon's children then they wouldn't be promoting the ballot measure at all.

Perhaps they would be engaged in the kind of constructive exchange of views in some of the comments above. If merit pay for teachers is a good idea then let the legislature hear testimony from all involved and craft a bill that needs majorities in two house and the Governor's signature as well.

In actual fact Bill and Lars are both motivated out of spite for organized working people who have the gall to stand up for themselves and have opposed them both for years.

Full disclosure: I am not an educator of any kind, nor do I have children of any age! I am a life long Union member.

• Pedro -

Lars, meet Mike. Whatever one thinks of Gov. Mike Huckabee, he is a hero on this issue. When asked about failing schools and the role of "the teachers union", he did not rise to the bait.

"When I was governor, and we had to take over a failing school, first we fired the Superintendent and then we told the school board their services were no longer needed.

In other words, management is responsible for the quality of schools, and blaming the teachers union won't change that. What a concept!

As I understand it, the Denver system is one which was developed in cooperation with teachers, rather than imposing it on them. It is my understanding that Denver (or Colorado?) has long had a mentoring system for teachers. Years ago, a freshman legislator who had been a school board member arranged for teachers from his district to address the Education Committee on the staff development program they had developed from the ground up. Were those teachers excellent teachers? If not, why not?

Before I was a substitute teacher, I added an endorsement to my teaching certificate and did a practicum in a middle school. I worked under 2 teachers--one was wonderful, the other was a joke. The question is how to reward the excellent teacher and pay less (or discharge) the joke. Who decides? What is the process? Do individual teachers have any input in the process of deciding, or is it done like a contract negotiation with a management team and a team of teachers? Should the state require strict evaluation of administrators, or only teachers?

I have worked in buildings where all the staff were wonderful, and others where some of the staff were questionable. Also, I have worked for excellent principals (drove over an hour one way to substitute with advance notice one year to work with an excellent principal in a small town school) and the kind who ought to be evaluated and possibly put on a plan of action or removed from being principals.

Does Lars understand that concept? Does he understand there have been years where some parents were angry because the teacher they thought was the best thing that ever happened to their children was removed by administrators? Or doesn't that sort of thing matter?

Besides what Chris said, how does a system guarantee that, for instance, the teacher who is generally considered wonderful is rated highly, and the teacher who is widely regarded as a joke is paid less, disciplined, etc?

Back when Republicans had a 20-10 State Senate majority, they passed a law to end teacher tenure and regulate the maximum length of teacher contracts. During the next year, one of the sponsors of that bill was being interviewed on the radio. He said there was a percentage of lousy teachers in all schools (maybe 2%) and by golly he was going to get a law passed in the next session of the legislature mandating that every district fire that percent of teachers every year or tell the state the reason why. Except that November came around and the GOP majority sank to something like 17, giving moderates in both parties a share of the power.

Implementation always matters. Soundbites saying "We should..." do anything, without talking details, tend to turn off people who care about the details. Lars probably doesn't understand that.

I appreciate the complexity of implementing "merit pay." It's true, given the public school system the way it is presently organized, there probably isn't a good way to do this.

Still, for a progressive, this misses the point, and once again it goes to my frustration with this site. Most of the posts above seem to accept the central premises dictated by gangsters like Sizemore and media clowns like Larson as though they were serious people.

Consider the big picture.

The attempt to impose "merit pay" is part of a constellation of efforts (vouchers, charter schools, NCLB etc.) that are designed to end public education, the last large public sector of the economy that has successfully resisted privatization.

In turn, this is the latest battlefield in a war that has been going on for a long time now (since, perhaps Taft-Hartley in 1947) to erode the public sector and the entire concept of the "common good" in favor of a market ideology that legitimizes the transfer of power and wealth from the middle to the very wealthy.

Key to this effort has been the demonization of unions. Unions have never been the blameless engines of social transformation that their boosters have claimed, but they still exist as emblems of solidarity . . . even if now that solidarity is, for the most part, with each other, and not with the people at large. This is the triumph, if we can call it that) of Gompers' "pure and simple unionism."

Still, as puny and insignificant as it is, solidarity is seen by the market fundamentalists as something that cannot exist. It has to be stamped out, completely, because if we are not completely selfish beings by nature, then, who knows, perhaps Lars Larson does not "deserve" his riches in the larger scheme of things. Maybe a better world is possible. And that idea is what must be eliminated.

That is why merit pay is so important to the right. That is why it has to be resisted.

Still, if the past is any indication of the future, and if the posts here are any indication, we'll eventually get something like it and we'll congratulate ourselves on striking some kind of a compromise.

Jesus wept.

Here's my two cents regarding merit pay:

1. Will my superintendant's salary also be based on student achievement and test scores? What about other central office staff who pull down six figures a year? Will their salary be impacted by this measure?

2. What about guidance counselors, will they get a pay raise based on test scores? They don't teach students directly at my high school, yet they are licensed staff just like me.

3. Oregon high school students could care less about CIM tests. Want to know why? BECAUSE THEY DON'T AFFECT THEIR GRADUATION OR COLLEGE ADMISSIONS! Oregon colleges and universities don't consider CIM test scores as part of the admission process. They don't affect a student's ability to graduate. So now the salary of Oregon teachers is going to be impacted by a meaningless test!?!? That makes no sense. I wouldn't mind an exit exam that tested REAL skills, but that's a discussion for another time.

4. I taught at an alternative high school in western North Carolina for two years. I worked with students who dropped out of school multiple times and the same was usually true of their parents. NC dictated that a student pass an end of course exam (EOC) in a variety of subjects (e.g.,US History, Biology, and Civic). The US History exam was an incredibly nitpicky 100 question multiple choice exam on ALL of American history. If a student failed the exam they got one chance to re-take the test. If they failed for a second time they had to repeat the entire course. I taught students who failed that exam multiple times. Teachers were given bonuses if their school showed significant gains on these exams. Guess what I did--I taught to the test. I had to, for my sake and the student's.

Teaching in that environment is intellectually stultifying and stressful. I nearly got an ulcer the last week of every semester as the EOC approached. Look, I know who the bad teachers are and so do the students. Administrators need to step up and do more to identify those teachers that need improvement and start the process to jettison the ones who don't improve.

Sizemore's iniatitive is idiotic and without merit.

This is for Chris.

I taught for 15 years and 99% of my time was spent as the only adult in a classroom.

There were no other teachers around. They were busy with their 30 kids. Next door and down the hall.

So, I might have had a pretty good feeling who was a "good" teacher, through the kids I could trust, families and other teachers, but most teachers, like me, could spend decades without watching another teacher actually teach. So, who's good? Who knows?

We're too busy with the kids, and lessons, and grading, and IEP meetings, and the kids, etc,... It's getting a bit better, Nike is helping teachers work together, still, the profession has a long way to go in that regard.

And, on the core issue of the post, I will fully support merit pay for teachers when every kid comes to the classroom fed, healthy, and drug-free, with supportive families who work good, secure jobs and value education.

Kids ain't widgets.

Any real father knows that, right, Lars?

And, on the core issue of the post, I will fully support merit pay for teachers when every kid comes to the classroom fed, healthy, and drug-free, with supportive families who work good, secure jobs and value education.

Kids ain't widgets.

Anyone who has worked with kids (teacher, child care, coach, Sunday School teacher) knows that sometimes great kids have challenges---which lead to good parents being on a first name basis with the teacher or other adult in their child's life. This has nothing to do with income level, whether there are 2 parents, etc. (although that helps). Kids could be a real challenge one year and delightful students the next year.

Sadly, there are parents who might be gainfully employed and highly educated but who have the attitude "my child would never do anything wrong".

No teacher knows in advance how many great hardworking kids will be in the class and how many will be challenges. Or, for that matter, how many kids excel in some areas and have a tough time in other areas. Should teachers be held responsible for how many hours of TV kids watch at home? For whether their parents help them with homework?

A system which evaluates administrators (central office administrators making the big bucks as well as principals and others) as well as teachers might be worth considering. But how would the counselor, the librarian, the PE and Music teachers be evaluated? Or is this just an anti-union measure disguised as being about quality education just so Sizemore can continue running ballot measures for a living and Lars can continue shooting his mouth off?

There was a time when KXL was one of the punch buttons on my car radio. That ended years ago.

Paul G. asks of Sid (and please excuse me if I respond to something that I was not asked):

Do you think unprepared students are unequally distributed among classrooms?

The answer is: of course unprepared students are unequally distributed among classrooms. Just a moment's thought will tell you why.

The teacher who teaches Geometry gets students, generally speaking, who are better prepared than those who are repeating Algebra 1-2. Core classes are a heterogeneous mix that varies wildly from year to year and from semester to semester of special education students, ELL students, TAG students who are frustrated by being in the same classroom with the previous two groups, shifting ethnic groups as Portland's "choice" program plays out from year to year . . . etc. etc. etc. in more detail than you could possibly imagine unless you have spent five or ten years doing this. Each situation is much more sui generis than folks on the outside believe, which is one more reason why knowledgeable social science geeks are appropriately skeptical of what passes for research in education. Some of it is useful, but not to the extent that it claims to be. More of it is mere fudge.

Which brings up quibble #2 . . . Paul G. said, once again, to Sid: "Essentially you are arguing that we have no idea what constitutes good or bad education, who is a good or bad teacher."

With respect, that is not quite the argument as I understand it. What we are saying is that the crude instruments that claim to measure who is a good and who is a bad teacher fail to accomplish this goal in any kind of reasonable way.

(I personally add that this is not an accident, but rather a part of a planned assault on the social by the right.)

and finally, quibble #3: Paul G. said (once again, not to me but to Realistic Teacher):
"The 'six figures' is just a red herring . . ."

In my opinion, this is absolutely germane to a discussion of merit pay, for reasons that I tried to state in my posting above. Education (like America herself) needs a flatter system of income and wealth; the 'merit pay' racket is an attempt to increase stratification and erode group cohesion.

The reference to market-based salaries for administrators, given the well-known PPS experience with superintendents and the educational bureaucracy, is grasping after a primitive superstition. Market fundamentalism is what has caused our present sickness, and we won't get better until we go into market fetishism rehab.

A couple decades ago, a major business magazine (Fortune?) had a list of things anyone in business could do to help public schools. One of the major ideas was "wipe the phrase 'just a teacher' from your vocabulary because many of them face incredible odds and keep working hard".

Years ago a brand new school superintendent was speaking to the annual substitute teacher inservice.

To break the ice, she read something which had been published in a professional publication (maybe a business journal?) to explain the realities of school classrooms. It was about business executives learning what real classrooms are like. (Having substituted in a parochial school, I might add that this might also be true in private education--some of my more interesting discipline problem stories come from that experience.)

The idea was based on Survivor or that sort of show.

Each business executive was dropped into a classroom based on statistics: (which were in the story but I don't recall them) a certain number of: very bright hard working students students whose parents work 2 jobs and were not often around students who qualify for free/reduced lunch students with certain learning disabilities (from special ed kids to kids who might be really good at certain subjects but also have trouble concentrating if there are any distractions, for instance) *students with a history of discipline referrals etc.

The punchline was "after a week, the winner gets to go back to their nice quiet office".

Joe Hill paints a more accurate picture than some people want to believe. And about "market based administrative salaries"? How about this proposal: For every administrator who earns at least $90,000 per year (esp.in a central office administrative position) let's have a full public description of exactly what they do to earn that money, and why those tasks deserve that salary. "The going rate" is not a valid answer.

Otherwise, it sounds like the old "management deserves whatever the market will bear, without public scrutiny, but the work of teachers should be scrutinzed in great detail because they deserve no more respect than factory workers".

<h2>My guess is that anyone who spent a day in most schools (high school is hard, middle and elementary schools are harder) would not begrudge the sort of peer review some school districts (like Toledo, OH) use, while granting pay increases to those teachers who work with difficult kids, year after year.</h2>