The imbroglio in Wisconsin is focusing attention on the issue of educational quality, with the defenders of the status quo trying to get people to believe that a unionized teaching corps is more effective than one that is not unionized.
One aspect of that debate is whether teachers should receive merit pay. The unions will tell you that they aren’t against the idea. But as Jay Greene observes in this piece what they have in mind is a system that automatically rewards teachers for the accumulation of additional credentials. We’re supposed to assume that a teacher who has a master’s degree in education is more effective than one who doesn’t and therefore deserves more money. There is no such connection. All this approach does is to ensure jobs for more professors of education.
