I have become increasingly optimistic as our group continues its research into the benefits and feasibility of a merit-based pay structure for public school teachers. We’ve discussed systems recently implemented at the state level in Florida, and at the national level with President Obama’s Race To The Top plan. Recently, that progress towards sweeping education reforms again saw promise, but this time at the local level. Today, Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel named Jean-Claude Brizard the new Chicago Public Schools CEO. Brizard is the former superintendent of schools for Rochester, NY and during his reign supported both an increase in charter schools and the introduction of merit-based pay for teachers. Emmanuel conducted a nation-wide search for his new Chicago Schools CEO and settled on the man that has drawn the scorn of New York teachers unions for his stance on the merit pay system. According to Janet Knupp, CEO of the education reform group the Chicago Public Education Fund, “The difficult choices that he’s making there [Rochester], he’ll have to make here.”
The merit-based system has shown its diversity in each of the first three content related posts on this blog. Efforts to institute the system are occurring or have already been implemented at all three levels of government. What’s more, is that both Republicans (Governor Rick Scott in Florida) and Democrats (President Obama, and more recently his former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) who have endorsed the need to move the teaching profession away from a tenure system to one more dedicated to performance. With each political party beginning to understand the benefits of such a system, it now seems possible to implement a bipartisan education reform package that includes merit-based pay for teachers.
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