Walter Cronkite said it best

I have severe reservations about performance-based pay for teachers. I experienced it first hand whilst teaching in England and I was not a fan.

And when Julia Gillard says that they will build the system to measure I just despair. I am all for professionals being accountable for what they do. But when data from a skills test which is supposed to be a tool for teachers to help their students address the areas for improvement will then somehow be aligned to bonus pay then I can't see teachers really being creative and interested in inqury based learning or anything other than teaching to the test! It just sends a shudder up my spine.

And when educational experts like Michael Fullan warn against its then I think it is clear that it is policy gone wrong. And to narrow it down to my area of practice - being a teacher librarian now instead in the classroom - how am I going to be measured if this policy agenda is pushed through??? How am I going to be measured? Against what criteria? I am all about improving student achievement and hope that the library can be a wonderful place in which they can become information literate people able to navigate the perils and pitfalls of a rapidly changing world which throws at them terabytes of information at a growing rate. But some things cannot be measured and somethings should be valued for what they are. As the wise sage Walter Cronkite said - Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/reward-teachers-by-all-means-but-not-in-this-hamfisted-way-20110503-1e6mg.html