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      "title": "The Dumbing-Down of America And The Teacher Marit -Pay System",
      "body": "<html>\n<p><br></p>\n<p>![meritstandard.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmch9v5Xj3qZJZBhwttUQnEb2b3dwjGG91nM724c4bMonV/meritstandard.gif)</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.madisonteachers.org/union-information/issue-papers/merit-pay/\">imagelink</a></p>\n<p>Should teachers be paid based on how well their students perform?&nbsp;There is&nbsp;a great debate&nbsp;concerning&nbsp;the endorsement of the merit pay&nbsp;system. Merit pay has turned out to be an issue politicians continue to support and teachers continue to reject. According to Murnane and Cohen (1985), merit pay is “a compensation scheme that bases individual teachers’ compensation on their performance in teaching their students, as measured by either students’ test score gains or by supervisor’s evaluations of teacher actions in the classroom.”</p>\n<p>Teacher merit pay is said to increase test scores, bring quality teachers into schools and&nbsp;fairly&nbsp;pay those teachers who work hard. When one analyzes the&nbsp;system, the negative results far outweigh the few positive results that merit pay could bring to teachers and the educational&nbsp;system. In the United States, policymakers are divided on whether merit pay should be administered or not. Proponents of the merit pay&nbsp;system&nbsp;believe it is&nbsp;the answer to the educational barriers in the United States. In the 1990s, different merit pay systems were evaluated across the United States.&nbsp;&nbsp;While many teachers enjoyed “extra pay for extra work,” many plans that tried to give incentives to teachers through&nbsp;the use of&nbsp;money did very little to improve test scores and teacher effectiveness (Epstein).</p>\n<p>Despite past failures of the merit pay&nbsp;system, as of 2005, 20 states in the United States had implemented&nbsp;a&nbsp;sort of&nbsp;merit pay&nbsp;system&nbsp;(Johnson, 2006). Merit pay&nbsp;would&nbsp;inspire potential teachers to give the profession more consideration as a&nbsp;viable&nbsp;career choice,&nbsp;rather&nbsp;than a personal sacrifice for higher good. By tying salaries to performance, the profession&nbsp;would&nbsp;look more modern and credible, thus attracting young college graduates to the classroom (Pros and Cons of Merit Pay for Teachers). Those in favor of merit pay for teachers, which include fospittingesident George W. Bush, who started the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), and former President Barack Obama, whose administration founded “Race to the Top,” have noted that, over $4 billion has been spent with the aim of improving the educational&nbsp;system&nbsp;by the Federal government in the United States. According to a study done by The Urban Institute, merit pay might “not succeed at implementing lasting, effective... plans that had a demonstrated ability to improve students learning” (“Urban Institute Study of Merit Pay&nbsp;System”).</p>\n<p>The most important question that needs an answer is whether&nbsp;there can ever be a “fair” way to measure the “effectiveness of a teacher” and teacher improvements. As of December 27, 2014, there was no well recognized or fair way of measuring teacher improvement and or effectiveness in class and student improvement as whole. Many who have tried to track the effectiveness of the merit pay&nbsp;system&nbsp;came to the realization that, the&nbsp;system&nbsp;would&nbsp;be a total failure if generally implemented on every school. Julie E. Koppich, a San Francisco based author who wanted to research the&nbsp;system’s effectiveness in one of the largest states, California, discovered that, “the state was not keeping data on the program’s effectives” (Jacobsen). The fact that even the technology hub which houses some of the biggest data processing companies like Facebook, Google found it difficult to keep records alone is&nbsp;evident&nbsp;of how unrealistic it&nbsp;would&nbsp;be to track or measure merit pay for the whole country.</p>\n<p>Another&nbsp;area&nbsp;of great uncertainty is how teachers&nbsp;would&nbsp;be nominated for merit pay. Many suggest that, since the principals oversee schools, the authority to nominate a teacher for merit pay should be placed in their hands. Other&nbsp;also&nbsp;suggests voting by fellow teachers as means of&nbsp;selection&nbsp;for merit pay. If indeed principals are given the power to nominate teachers, there might be the risk of ‘arbitrariness and favoritism. Staff morale will suffer if subservience defines merit pay” (Teacher Merit Pay Is a&nbsp;Bad&nbsp;Idea). Should the requirements for merit pay be students’ scores on standardize tests, teachers might as well just focus on test preparation and teach to pass the test. These days, education is&nbsp;all&nbsp;about&nbsp;memorizing notes and spiting it back to the teacher for an A. We are losing our&nbsp;critical&nbsp;thinking skills because everything is so narrow. It is&nbsp;like&nbsp;being taught that 1+2=3, once we have 2+1, then our mind goes blank. We just memorize to pass the test. That is the&nbsp;kind of&nbsp;system&nbsp;merit pay is encouraging if a teacher’s pay should be based on how well his or her students&nbsp;perform&nbsp;on standardized tests. A teacher who is&nbsp;willing to enrich students might sometimes go above the&nbsp;minimum&nbsp;requirements of the curriculum and do something extra other than just focusing on test preparation.</p>\n<p>Based on the evidence,&nbsp;it is&nbsp;hard to say that merit based pay benefits the clear majority of teachers. It's&nbsp;also&nbsp;hard to say that&nbsp;it is&nbsp;good for any students. A University of Florida study showed that students taught by teachers participating in merit pay programs only scored one or two percentage points higher on standardized tests than did other students. Other negative factors worth mentioning when talking&nbsp;about&nbsp;the merit pay topic is the issue of&nbsp;merit pay lowering staff morale by discouraging the teaching disadvantaged students (Debatepedia). Those in&nbsp;favor of merit pay want teachers’ pay to be based on how well his or her students on standardized tests but “teacher evaluation is much more complicated than&nbsp;simply&nbsp;looking at test scores. It requires careful examination of teacher behaviors,&nbsp;how a teacher relates to the students, and his or her command of&nbsp;subject&nbsp;matter being taught. This cannot be judged by just looking at a student’s test scores” (Teacher Compensation Based on Performance). It is indeed not fair, logical or ethical to pay a teacher based on how well his or her students&nbsp;perform&nbsp;on standardized tests. Teachers do not get the chance or the power to choose who comes into their classroom to be taught.&nbsp;All&nbsp;they know is, they have students who they should teach. The ratification of merit pay will drive teachers away from teaching disadvantaged students because no one will&nbsp;like&nbsp;to work hard for a pay and be paid less while others get paid more; unless&nbsp;it is&nbsp;a volunteering job of course. Teachers regard this act of imposing merit pay as an unfair punishment not only to the students but to the teacher as well because most disadvantaged students in&nbsp;some&nbsp;way already neglected by their own peers and the only comfort they may get may be from the faculty/caretaker who works directly with them.&nbsp;Therefore, setting up a&nbsp;system&nbsp;in which teachers are paid based on how well their students&nbsp;perform&nbsp;on standardized tests is highly unethical.</p>\n<p>The introduction of merit pay could&nbsp;also&nbsp;lead to discrimination against certain institutions. For example, Beth Devos and President Trump allocated several hundred million dollars intended to fund private and charter schools. For those who might not be aware, charter schools have a lot of flexibility and very little accountability when compared to public schools., They serve as drains that take funding away from the traditional public schools; meanwhile, public schools process the most students. Charter schools can legally be for-profit thus giving private companies freedom to profit on the backs of students. Additionally, when there is very little regulation on institutions financials, it leads to fraud as can be seen in reports on Charter schools. It also leads to blatant uncontrolled discrimination as in the case of Lighthouse Christian Academy which denied admission to LGBT children. &nbsp;Beth Devos ignored all these and the fact that about a third of charter schools opened in just 2000 closed by 2010. (If someone can explain the rational to me, it would be appreciated)</p>\n<p>People say merit pay could create a&nbsp;system&nbsp;which&nbsp;would&nbsp;“especially be helpful in enabling schools with lower socioeconomic status attract qualified teachers” (Debatepedia). A qualified teacher who loves his or her job is someone whose&nbsp;objective&nbsp;is to improve student education and&nbsp;would&nbsp;not&nbsp;really&nbsp;mind the socioeconomic status of the school where he or she is teaching. But, according to the Teacher&nbsp;Advantage&nbsp;Program, there was an increase in&nbsp;about&nbsp;61 teachers who started to teach in the top two lowest socioeconomic status schools in Madison School District because of the introduction of the merit pay&nbsp;system&nbsp;(Tap&nbsp;System.org). The idea of using money to lure a teacher to a place in he/she would rather not be is mostly not going to improve our educational&nbsp;system. In such a case, if the source of the empowerment&nbsp;which is&nbsp;the money is no more, then the whole&nbsp;system&nbsp;fails and goes back to level one but this time, we have wasted more resources than we should. The higher the numbers of teachers who prove themselves to be highly effective, the lower the value of the merit pay. To elaborate more on that if money is being allocated for merit pay and many teachers&nbsp;seem&nbsp;to be doing what is expected of&nbsp;them.&nbsp;Thus, raise test scores then a time will come and the government will have no money to pay the extra lucrative incentive. When&nbsp;all&nbsp;things are considered, merit pay&nbsp;would&nbsp;rather&nbsp;drive teachers away from their true duty.</p>\n<p>From a labor perspective merit pay&nbsp;would&nbsp;also&nbsp;divide the work force and in the long run lessen our ability to fight collectively to improve public education. If salaries were not&nbsp;simply&nbsp;based on years of experience and number of college credits earned or&nbsp;additional&nbsp;services provided, the teaching force at any workplace&nbsp;would&nbsp;be more stratified (differentiated) and much less willing to stand together during a conflict during a contract struggle. The role of the union&nbsp;would&nbsp;be seriously compromised.</p>\n<p>Similarly, merit pay will&nbsp;eventually&nbsp;lead to a worse educational&nbsp;system&nbsp;than we&nbsp;currently&nbsp;have. Nobody is perfect. We need help from one another occasionally. Teachers share knowledge and experiences they may have gone through with other teachers. That makes the school a more unified force with the aim of helping students succeed. But, with the consideration of the merit pay&nbsp;system, teachers will be reluctant to help other teachers with the fear of not being able to be the one to receive the merit pay award. On a more scientific base, the introduction of merit pay&nbsp;system&nbsp;could create unhealthy competition among faculty. An example of that could be stress. This stress could negatively affect the mental health of teachers who, by no fault of theirs, have students who have no enthusiasm for education.</p>\n<p>&nbsp;I say let’s just give bonuses to&nbsp;all&nbsp;teachers at problem schools where&nbsp;there are&nbsp;high poverty rates, high crime rates and gaga affiliations. This way, teachers who face the greatest challenges teaching under such difficult condition&nbsp;would&nbsp;be correctly rewarded for their services. Instead of just giving out money to anybody who produces high test scores by which ever unscrupulous means we may not even know&nbsp;about. Marie Gryphon, an education policy analyst at Cato Institute,&nbsp;also&nbsp;made&nbsp;some&nbsp;practical objections to the merit pay&nbsp;system. She said, “merit pay&nbsp;would&nbsp;favor teachers in wealthy neighborhoods whose students come to school&nbsp;already&nbsp;with excellent skill” (Cato Institute). In other words, teachers who contributed&nbsp;almost&nbsp;nothing to a student’s welfare or grades get paid for something they did not even do. The problem with merit-based pay is that there's no reasonable, rational, consistent way to measure performance... teaching is more art than science. Every student is different, with a unique perspective,&nbsp;background, learning style, and, more importantly, pace of development. To penalize a teacher for having a group of students who develop more&nbsp;slowly&nbsp;than others is absurd. No matter how good the teacher is, there's no way to force a child to develop faster than they naturally can. Marie Grphon&nbsp;also&nbsp;noted that, merit pay&nbsp;would&nbsp;‘worsen the problem of teachers cheating for their students on standardized tests just to avoid the consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act.” The thought of desperate teachers engaging in unscrupulous acts to gain merit makes the whole&nbsp;system&nbsp;a waste of money and time; especially when most teachers&nbsp;would&nbsp;do&nbsp;anything&nbsp;just to gain an unfair&nbsp;advantage&nbsp;over their colleagues. The&nbsp;system&nbsp;creates the temptation to cheat.</p>\n<p>What the educational&nbsp;system&nbsp;really&nbsp;needs is to follow the school of thought “It takes a whole village to raise a child”. In this case, the “child” referring to students’ and the “village”&nbsp;all&nbsp;the factors that play into helping a child to grow successfully. For a student to&nbsp;perform&nbsp;well, the student needs support from home, healthy meals, good parental guidance and above&nbsp;all&nbsp;love. The other&nbsp;factor&nbsp;is support from other faculty. This may give the child a sense of belonging and motivation. For a disabled person, it may even call for more personable specialists who&nbsp;would&nbsp;devise better learning strategies to help disabled students grasp the material better. Teachers do not have to compete for better pay, what teachers need are annual “training, professional development, time with other educators and a very supportive administration” (American Federation of Teachers). Teachers&nbsp;do need lower class sizes, safe and clean place to work.</p>\n<p>In final consideration,&nbsp;I hope I have been able to convince you that teacher merit pay will not work but rather lead to classes such as arts, music, and physical education being omitted from the curriculum because the admission of standardized tests is not possible in such areas. What it will do in the long run is lead to nothing but three thousand five hundred and thirty thousand times backward for every ten steps forward.</p>\n<p><br></p>\n<h2>Leave a little comment on how we can truly transform the dumbing down of America.</h2>\n<p><br></p>\n<p><br></p>\n</html>",
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      "body": "Thanks, @cquist. It sounds like the guy in your class probably had it a little worse than me. I've wanted to go to a lab and have a full sleep study done but when I had the job with insurance I didn't have the time. Now I have the time but I don't have the insurance!",
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      "body": "Haha yeah I did :D What you think? Check out my latest posts, let me know what you think :)",
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      "body": "<html>\n<p><img src=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/o-PILES-OF-AMERICAN-MONEY-facebook.jpg?w=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1000\"/></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://boingboing.net/tag/money\">boingboin.net&nbsp;</a></p>\n<p>Most people would say, Steve Jobs. For those of you who might not know, there were two other dudes named Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak. Let's pick on Mr. Wayne for a bit- it's all for the sake of knowledge guys. I promise :)The guy apparently sold his stake for $800 back in the days. This guy could have been stupid rich now, considering Apple's worth of around $750 billion. I mean this guy could have been sitting in a room with people fanning him, women feeding him grapes, and 3 gold chains dangling from his neck. - Like in the movies. The man claims he does not regret the decision though. &nbsp;The lesson here is that the journey to nurture a start-up is not for everyone. 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You can send Christmas gifts to their children, call often to see how they are doing etc. that way when you ask for money in the next few months, they will be like \" uncle Mayard bought toys for Sandy so we should help him out!<br>\n</p>\n<h2>(2) Crowd Funding</h2>\n<p>You've heard of Gofundme, Indiegogo etc. Those are sweet ones. &nbsp;You basically, tell the world what you are working on people who believe in your project fund you. If you are in the updated fintech world, you would have heard of crypto-currencies. (That stuff is deep- you can do a quick youtube search) With cryptocurrencies, you can set up your company and have people fund you through ICOs. It's like getting one of those Mr. Wayne opportunities. I believe it's the easiest and fastest way to obtain funding for an idea. For example, <a href=\"https://brave.com/\">BRAVE</a>, a browser that promises to keep advertisement and privacy control in the hands of the people raised 35 million in 30 seconds!! 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You have to submit regular progress reports though.<br>\n</p>\n<h2>(4) Contests</h2>\n<p>If you are adept at presenting your ideas, you will always get these ones. <a href=\"http://www.43north.org/\">43North</a>, <a href=\"https://www.riseofrest.com/\">Rise of Rest</a>, <a href=\"http://htr.org/\">High tech Rochester</a> give you free money if your business plan makes sense. You want jobs, this is a secret place to find jobs that a lot of people are not applying for simply because they don't know about it. If you are like Mr. Wayne, you can come here and apply for a second chance.<br>\n</p>\n<h2>(5) The actual Seed.</h2>\n<p>The first source of \"outside\" funding. This means money is not from your friends, family or grants. We are taking the order of magnitude in the $100,000–$250,000+ range. If you have a very rich aunt, why not. 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The company once worth 9 billion now worth $0 according. Elizabeth Holm's story is one EVERY aspiring entrepreneur should know.&nbsp;Let the curiosity begin. Check it out on <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2016/10/08/bad-blood-the-decline-and-fall-of-elizabeth-holmes-and-theranos/#54590bcec335\">Forbes</a><br>\n<strong>Stay tuned for more informative content on how to navigate the complicated laws of the FDA, US Patent office and just general sweet talk on life!</strong><br>\n</p>\n</html>",
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I normally use <a href=\"https://tokenmarket.net/ico-calendar\">https://tokenmarket.net/ico-calendar</a>to see what's coming my way. Certainly, there are others.&nbsp;<br>\n</p>\n<h2>(3) Grants</h2>\n<p>This is free money. Free people. Where is the money from? The government gives free money to start-up. For example: <a href=\"https://www.sbir.gov/about/about-sttr\">https://www.sbir.gov/about/about-sttr</a> and https://grants.nih.gov/grants/oer.htm. There are also accommodations available from individual states. You also get money back if you state it on your taxes. Grants are not only excellence because they are free money but also because they are free money that is not equity diluting. Getting a grant gives you bragging rights and validates your product to other investors. As you know, there is nothing free on planet earth! You have to submit regular progress reports though.<br>\n</p>\n<h2>(4) Contests</h2>\n<p>If you are adept at presenting your ideas, you will always get these ones. <a href=\"http://www.43north.org/\">43North</a>, <a href=\"https://www.riseofrest.com/\">Rise of Rest</a>, <a href=\"http://htr.org/\">High tech Rochester</a> give you free money if your business plan makes sense. You want jobs, this is a secret place to find jobs that a lot of people are not applying for simply because they don't know about it. If you are like Mr. Wayne, you can come here and apply for a second chance.<br>\n</p>\n<h2>(5) The actual Seed.</h2>\n<p>The first source of \"outside\" funding. This means money is not from your friends, family or grants. We are taking the order of magnitude in the $100,000–$250,000+ range. If you have a very rich aunt, why not. Take the money and sign a contract.<br>\n</p>\n<h2>(6) Angel Investors</h2>\n<p>Anyone with a net worth of $1million not including their house can throw money your way. These guys are not even playing. They would give you $25,000 or more but they expect a fat profit.&nbsp;<br>\n</p>\n<h2>(7) Venture Capitalists- Series A,B,C&nbsp;</h2>\n<p>&nbsp;This involves different series of funding (Series A, B, C etc.) This is mostly done by companies who may have begun selling products and need to scale up or just to offset their initial losses as they may not have been profitable. Investors at this stage usually fund $1- 3million. The downside of this is that these big valuations being taken by companies are very equity diluting.&nbsp;<br>\n</p>\n<h2>-The Golden Rule- Ethics</h2>\n<p>Don't get ahead of yourself. Employ basic ethics in all processes.You all heard of Theranos, the company that attempted to perform blood test at a fraction, time, cost and blood sample. The company once worth 9 billion now worth $0 according. Elizabeth Holm's story is one EVERY aspiring entrepreneur should know.&nbsp;Let the curiosity begin. Check it out on <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2016/10/08/bad-blood-the-decline-and-fall-of-elizabeth-holmes-and-theranos/#54590bcec335\">Forbes</a><br>\n<strong>Stay tuned for more informative content on how to navigate the complicated laws of the FDA, US Patent office and just general sweet talk on life!</strong><br>\n</p>\n</html>",
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