I do not recommend that the school district convert to merit pay for teachers. It is a hazardous proposition and we will explore the reasons why.
First of all, teachers do not support merit pay and the result would have negative consequences to general morale of the teachers. We do face a shortage of teachers in this nation and to risk losing even one good teacher over this issue would be a loss that we cannot afford.
Merit pay for student's test scores creates an environment where a teacher may simply "teach" the test rather than teaching the student and teaching the grade level curriculum. To have an entire school year's worth of work be decided by one test is contradictory to what education is about. The process of teaching is a constant daily procedure to be evaluated consistently on a periodic basis throughout the school year. It is of no value to the teacher or the student to make a realization at the end of a school year that a student did not learn a particular area of study. If our purpose truly were to leave no child behind, then it would be too late to remedy that situation at the end of the school year based on the results of one test. To institute pay for merit would create animosity in the classroom, as well as with other colleagues in a profession where collaboration and teamwork are vital to attaining the goal of teaching students. Pay for merit based on test results also would not be effective as there are too many variables in what is not a controlled setting. A student's performance could be skewed by factors of sleep, illness, stress from home, stress from the teacher, or stress from the test. A teacher could even manipulate the data thus affecting the results that are produced. .
The criteria I suggest to earn pay raises are that if a teacher receives certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards they would be given a raise.
I propose that teachers would, in essence, govern one another and be held accountable to one another.