Letters to the Editor
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‘Taken to School’
The reason that stock brokers, salesmen lawyers, and wait staff are monetarily rewarded for good work and punished when they fail to perform is simple: Success and failures are easy to gauge in the free-market system [Editorial, “Taken to School,” August 20, 2007].
A lawyer that constantly loses cases or fails to file a motion is subjected to the same fate as a waitress that constantly accidentally pours coffee on herself: he or she will either be fired or his or her business will fail. Unfortunately politicians like Rudy Giuliani that favor performance-based education fail to mention just how this system will work without instituting more testing and hurting the most vulnerable children.
Instead of answers, vagaries about the free-market system are as talked about as if our children were a law firm’s caseload or laptop computers manufactured in China and sold in America. A typical New York City teacher has about 120 students and 120 different personalities, problems, and issues to contend with everyday.
By imposing a pay-for-success system in education, it is inevitable that the “toughest” personalities — the child with the most problems like learning disabilities, emotional problems, or even from abused homes — will inevitably be cast aside in order to seek a more “profitable” child to educate.
A good teacher is not just an educator but a psychologist, mentor, and in some cases a surrogate parent.
Faced with the reality that these overworked professionals are already underpaid and undervalued, what incentive would there be to help this country’s struggling students if a pay-for-performance system were to be adopted?
The free-market system is great for weeding out the bad law firms and the dirty restaurants, but terrible for an educational system.
Yes, the educational system needs to be reformed — it is obvious that in many cities around the country it is failing our children.
And yes, concessions by the teachers unions should be looked at.
However to merely say that the same system that guides our economy should be used in education will only result in hurting the most vulnerable.
Pedro Vega
Teacher
Brooklyn, N.Y.
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