Merit Pay: An Agreeable Fantasy
Adlai Stevenson, the two-time unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president, is said to have once quipped: “Americans are suckers for good news. Given a choice between disagreeable fact and agreeable fantasy, they will choose the fantasy every time.”
For decades, the American public has chosen to believe in an agreeable educational fantasy: that merit pay for teachers will cure the ills of our “failing public schools,” particularly those in urban and high-poverty neighborhoods. This agreeable fantasy ignores three disagreeable facts:
1. We already have merit pay.
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