Pros And Cons Of Merit Pay

In the 1920’s, teacher preparation became more uniform. Teachers were required to obtain a higher education and schools began to form more of a bureaucratic organizational structure. As a result, the single salary schedule was proposed. The salary schedule allowed for all teachers, male and female, to be paid the same amount. Having a salary based income also helped to professionalize teaching as a career (Seyfarth, 2008). However, with the evolution of education in recent years, there has been a shift with how teachers are paid. In the 1990’s, changes in education have seen an emphasis on skill requirements for teachers which is known as merit pay. There is now a current demand for higher standards and accountability, teacher involvement, and an increasing amount of diverse student population that requires teachers to have a greater amount of skill sets. When examining both salary schedules and merit pay it is evident that there are both positives and negatives for both methods of pay.
There are a number of pros to the salary schedule. A possible strength of this pay method is that giving proportionally more generous raises to newer teachers would help improve retention (Seyfarth, 2008).
One downfall is that there is a disproportionate share of salary funds. For example, more funds go to veteran teachers and therefore there are fewer funds available to attract younger or less experienced teachers (Seyfarth, 2008).
The growing method of merit pay also has both pros and cons. The main benefit of merit pay is to reward outstanding teachers and those who take on more challenging assignments (Seyfarth, 2008). There are a number of incentives such as having a graduate degree, being National Board certified or teaching at a hard-to-staff school can increase an individual’s salary. The results of this method are that teachers will be motivated to work harder in order to receive a pay