NPR was blathering this morning about the problems associated with paying public school teachers based on their performance in the classroom. From what I could gather, there are two big problems with teachers earning pay increases by doing a good job:

1. Sometimes teachers have to teach students who really can’t learn very well, so it isn’t fair to hold them accountable
2. When one teacher gets more of a raise than another teacher, the other teacher’s feelings will get hurt

Sorry, teachers. I think it’s about time you joined the real world.

I had a bad boss who felt threatened by me and I went four or five years without a pay increase. I was doing my job well, but that didn’t matter. Sometimes pay increases aren’t fair. Sometimes people who perform poorly earn more money than people who perform well. Sometimes people who do easy jobs make more than people who do hard jobs. Who said life was fair?

People get their feelings hurt all the time. Who cares? This isn’t a therapy session, it’s life. Get some thicker skin.

My proposal is to do with teachers what some businesses are doing with their professionals. Give double raises to the top-performing ten percent. Give more or less standard raises to the middle sixty percent. Give no raises to those who perform in the ten to thirty percent range. Fire the bottom ten percent. Every year.

Pretty soon you have a competent bunch of teachers.

In Indianapolis, the Superintendent of Schools proposed sending the kids home from school on Wednesday afternoons so the teachers could get some extra training in group settings. The teachers loved the idea, I guess, but the people of the city — and particularly the parents — weren’t so keen on it. Child care problems, I imagine.

Somehow, my company has never suggested that we get Wednesday afternoons off. They seem to want us to do our jobs. Most of the training for doing our jobs is on-the-job training. The rest of our training was on our own time and on our own dime.

I have an idea. Let the teachers go home on Wednesday afternoons. And give them a ten percent pay cut to go with it. I know the pay cut would hurt their feelings, but think of the money the school system will save.

Most people in the real world are paid according to their value to those who are paying them. I say it should be the same with teachers.