Teachers' salaries should be based on their students' academic performance.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most co

The issue of making teachers’ salaries commensurate to the academic performance of their students is usually highly debated. Consequently, it is a nuanced issue that depends on what we as a society think the goal of the teacher should be. It ranges from expecting the teacher to only teach students how to pass exams, to allowing them to teach personal development skills so the student can have a better opportunity of becoming a well-rounded person. On balance, I tend to agree with the latter.

If we make the salaries dependent on the results of academic performance, then teachers will be incentivized to only teach how to be successful at taking exams. This will attenuate the importance of students’ ability to develop their critical and analytical thinking skills. During my high school years, we had an important state exam that we had to take and pass at the end of the year to move on to the next grade. The second half of the school year was spent on making the students understand how to pass the exam, as opposed to understand the content of it. Ultimately, this led to the majority of the students succeeding, but arguably that time could’ve been spent teaching students other fundamental skills.

Secondly, this new incentive will take away the responsibility of the parents to ensure their children are on top of their work. The new metric will dictate that if students are not passing, it’s due to the teachers lack of skill. This is already happening to an extent based on teacher’s testimonials. Parents decide to confront the teacher, effectively blaming them for the lack of success in the student’s report card. The teacher may argue that the student is the only one failing the class, nonetheless, this metric will exemplify that the teacher’s job is not good enough. As opposed to assigning the proper responsibility where it belongs: to the parents and the student.

Lastly, our education system is underfunded and that includes teacher salaries. Most of them use their own money to underwrite the classroom tools and decorations. Not only do they not get paid enough, we ask them to provide a good classroom environment, and now we seek to dangle their salaries on a complex metric. As we are to begin a new school year, I see many of my close friends who happen to be public school teachers share their amazon list of school supplies, in the hope that a good samaritan will help out with the expenses. If we want academic performance to improve, we should begin by appropriating the right amount of money for school funding, instead of meddling with the teachers’ salaries.

In conclusion, teachers’ salaries should not be based on academic performance. This will have unintended consequences that will stray focus away from making sure students develop their own personal growth to ensuring they know how to pass a test. As well as making them fully responsible for the success of the student instead of the parents or the student himself. Furthermore, teachers usually spend their own salary on tools to improve the classroom due to the lack of funding provided. So, aside from the difficult economic situation the teacher is placed, less resources would be provided from the teacher.