Kevin Falcon has proposed merit-based pay for teachers in B.C. As anyone familiar with the literature on incentive pay knows, this idea does not work. There are simply too many aspects of student performance over which teachers have little or no control, starting with the parents.
There is a group of public sector employees, however, who might respond well to incentive pay. These people have no clear job description, their performance is only reviewed once every four years, and, incredibly, they set their own salary. I am speaking, of course, of politicians.
So why not link MLA salaries to achieving desirable goals for B.C. Mr. Falcon's pay, for example, would be determined by B.C.'s standing relative to other jurisdictions. If the B.C. unemployment rate is the lowest in the world, he would get his full salary. If B.C. students are the best-educated in the world, he would get his full salary. If B.C. has the least pollution and the greenest economy in the world, he would get his full salary.
But fail to meet any of those standards, and his pay gets docked.
Does merit-based pay still sound so attractive, Mr. Falcon?
Stephen Rader
Prince George
