Letters to the Editor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
‘Taken to School’
The case for performance pay for public school teachers is based on the notion that teaching is no different from other occupations in the factors that shape behavior [Editorial, “Taken to School,”August20,2007].
While this argument has great intuitive appeal, particularly in today’s fiercely competitive environment, it is based on the cynical assumption that teachers are either lazy, indifferent, or incompetent, and will change only if they are enticed by financial incentives.
But this is a myth because teaching has never been a field that has paid well.
When the former president of the American Federation of Teachers, Albert Shanker, began his career in the classroom in East Harlem in the early 1950s, for example, teachers could have made more money washing cars than educating children.
Yet enough college graduates still viewed teaching as a calling, regardless of the salary, to staff schools. If pay were the number one consideration, they would never have entered the profession. The overwhelming majority of teachers today will support differential pay if it is based on criteria that they view as fair. That’s why teachers in Denver recently voted in favor of ProComp. Their views were given the respect long denied their predecessors, not only in the Mile High City but in other cities across the country.
Walt Gardner
Los Angeles, Calif.
