One Carroll County School Board candidate said at a candidates forum Sunday that he supports merit pay, a controversial measure in public education.
“I believe in merit pay, but we need to do it in a way the [teachers] union approves,” said Gary Bauer, an incumbent running for one of three open seats on the Board of Education.
Attracting and keeping teachers continues to be an issue in the School Board race, and proponents of merit pay, which rewards teachers based on performance, say it could be a way to retain quality instructors.
But the three challengers who attended the League of Women Voters candidates? forum at Carroll Community College in Westminster said merit pay fails in practice and only looks good on paper.
“I?d always been in favor of merit pay in the business community. However, I am cautious of it in public school system,” Dave Roush said. “What constitutes the merit? I don?t think we have a measure to evaluate that. Theoretically, it seems like a good idea, but there are some problems I would be very concerned about trying to link pay with test scores.”
“It could gravely affect morale and the outcome in classrooms,” Eric Weber said.
“I know too much about merit pay,” said George Maloney. “I?ve been working 57 years and saw the errors of merit pay tear crews apart.”
If re-elected, Gov. Robert Ehrlich has pledged to include funding in his 2008 fiscal year budget proposal for a merit-pay program in which local jurisdictions could decide whether to participate.
The Carroll CountyEducation Association, the local teachers? union, opposes merit pay.
The union studied the issue last year and didn?t find a successful merit-pay program in the nation that “mirrored our interests” in Carroll, said Barry Potts, union president.
“The problem with merit pay is that there has been no objective way to present it and to make it work, ” he said.
kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com
