MIDLAND, Mich. – Rewarding teachers for their excellence and positive impact on student learning is as American as apple pie and baseball.

But sadly, Michigan’s teacher compensation system is more like it might have been in the old Soviet Union, with pay based on seniority rather than excellence.

As that tide is slowly turning in Michigan and throughout the nation, the Mackinac Center points out “of course merit pay is a good idea.”

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Jarrett Skorup writes:

 In almost every profession, workers are compensated based on how much value their employers think they bring to the company. Of course, the workers generally want more money and the employers want to pay less, but some (type) of equilibrium is reached, which is how the market determines wages.

That’s merit pay, and outside of conventional public schools, it is almost entirely uncontroversial.

But defenders of the public school status quo in Michigan believe that compensation for teachers should be paid based on two things: Degree-level and longevity. They believe that the effectiveness of a teacher is too hard to measure and should not be attempted.

House Bill 4625, which recently passed through committee, would change that. According to MichiganVotes.org, it would, “require that the ‘primary factor’ in setting compensation levels for all new public school teachers and administrators must be ‘job performance and job accomplishments’ as determined by a ‘rigorous, transparent, and fair evaluation system primarily based upon student growth data as measured by…objective criteria.’

Setting pay on the basis of seniority would be prohibited, and setting it on the basis of academic credentials would be restricted.

The critics of the legislation argue that experience matters, which is true. That’s why, in general, employees with more experience in the private sector have higher salaries. The workers with more seniority tend to be better at the job they are doing.

But that’s not a universal truth — which is why private-sector employees don’t mandate compensation based only upon seniority. If they did, talented younger workers would go and work somewhere else while older employees would have less of an incentive to keep pace with newer workers.

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