2011-08-20

　　Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The teachers should be paid according to how well the students perform.

　　Teachers should in part be responsible of the students’ school performance, yet I disagree to the statement that the teachers should be paid according to the students’ performance on several grounds.

　　The statement itself underlies a serious mistake – the very purpose of teaching and schooling, and education on a bigger scale, is better performance of all students. Common sense informs me that education, and teachers’ responsibility in particular, should be intended to building up students’ confidence in exploring and discovering unknown respects as well as specific skills required to accomplish that. Such standard is often broad and abstract in contrast to the narrowness and rigidity of the criterion – students’ performance. If teachers’ salary is determined by the students’ performance, this hint would destroy the long-term function of schooling and education since the system is short-sightedly targeted at improving students’ performance.

　　Another thing to be worried about the statement is that, if actually carried out, both teachers and students would be cast into the irrational pursuit for performance thus results in serious problems. For example, a teacher evaluated in this way is immediately forced to make the decision: to push her class toward the best performance or at least better than the worst-performing class, and show preference to students who perform well. Such measures might be incentives for a better grade, but the teacher and the students would lose their original motivation in schooling as performance becomes the one and only purpose. Also, consequent competition among students would place heavy pressure on every student, and the ones who do not perform well would be neglected by the teacher and fall into upset. Considering all the disastrous effect such measure could incur, it is obvious that teachers should not be paid on the basis of students’ performance.　A more realistic and rational criterion to value teachers’ work (and therefore decide their salary) should include factors such as comprehensive developments of students, teachers’ own capacity to cultivate and educate, and parents’ feedback. Yet my disagreement does not suggest that students’ performance should be abandoned but rather included along with other indispensable factors in evaluating teachers’ work, since school report is still among most parents’ top concerns and students have to use it as anchor when applying for further studies. Also, it is reasonable that teachers who can enhance students’ performance should be paid better, as the measure would moderately motivate teachers to work hard.

　　In a nutshell, I object to the idea that the teachers should be paid on the basis of the students’ performance, but should instead be evaluated on a medley of comprehensive quatatives which agrees with the purpose of education and schooling as well as encourages their effort toward more satisfying learning experience.