I. Argument 1: Teachers who work harder and succeed in increasing their students test scores should be rewarded.

There are three critical pieces of evidence that support the fact that merit pay does increase student performance. According to newspaper USA Today, At Meadowcliff, a poor urban school, test scores rose about seven percentage points compared with similar schools lacking merit pay, says University of Arkansas professor Gary Ritter. When comparing two schools, one with merit pay, and one without, the one WITH merit pay had a SEVEN PERCENT raise in test scores. Furthermore, the benefit of merit pay has affected more schools compared to before. According to Susan Sclafani on database SIRS Issues Researcher, In India, teacher attendance and student achievement on external examinations improved because of incentives. By giving teachers cash bonuses, students in India improved their scores as well. Thats an example of merit pay helping yet another school. City Journal, a newspaper, stated, Education reformers argue that merit pay will give encouragement to good teachers and drive away bad ones, and this

improves under-performing public schools. It can also distinguish the bad teachers from the good ones. Each year almost one-third of public high school students fail to graduate from high school. The high school dropout problem is a crisis for the U.S, because it does not only impact individuals and their education, but also because the economic and social costs are so dramatic.

As of 2008, the U.S. has the highest prison population rate in the world. About 82 percent of American prisoners are high school dropouts. According to the Alliance For Excellent Education, increasing the high school graduation rate and college matriculation of male students by as little as 5 percent could reduce crime-related costs enough to generate $8 billion in revenue and savings every year. To lower that rate, having good teachers would do the trick. Having qualified teachers means that students would learn better and there wont be so much crimes. In order to get teachers to start teaching seriously, we need something that can spark up their interest and merit pay does just the job!

III. Argument 2: Merit Pay improves the quality of teachers. Merit pay should be allowed because they give teachers initiatives to try harder, which in the end helps the students succeed. In recent years there has been undeniable momentum toward acceptance of merit pay by state and local union members, and successful models exist in numerous states and school districts. Says McLathy Newspapers in 2009 which shows if local union members and state members are accepting it and promoting it so there must be proven benefits. Not only schools use some sort of Merit Pay, but also other companies use merit pays to judge their workers by when they clock in to when they clock out, and if they met their standards for what they are supposed to do. This is despite the fact almost every other profession uses a merit assessment process in determining pay raises." stated by Evansville Courier & Press, 2009. The fact that all other professions use a sort of Merit Pay to compensate their workers shows that there is proof that it works. Microsoft Adopts Pay for Performance to Enhance Legal Diversity. July 21, 2008.During the last decade, the nations law firms and large corporate legal

departments have grown considerably in size. As a profession, weve taken important strides to promote diversity. We believe we have an opportunity to achieve even bigger results if we can find new ways to work together, and thats what we hope to accomplish with this initiative. If Merit pay was unsuccessful in other careers they wouldnt use it to evaluate their workers and it just makes people work harder to earn that pay check. Most schools now go by the traditional school pay system of basing pay on how long youve worked and how far you have advanced in school such as college degrees, which has not shown much effect in our country currently. In the end it will just give good teachers more initiative to stay and get higher pay while raising test scores and ridding of the teachers that lack the quality of good teaching. - http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/jul08/0721lcadiversity.mspx When schools are made to go by the Merit pay system there is no room for failure for them, when encountered with Merit Pay they have to step up to the plate. Other workers of the school could also be a great cause, by saying that the teachers are the main cause of the rise in scores. Three years

ago, teachers and other employees at Meadow-cliff Elementary in southwest Little Rock were offered pay bonuses for boosting test scores. Shortly after that, Principal Karen Carter noticed some unusual events. Increasingly, cafeteria workers sat with students to chat about school work. Even more startling, the janitor began taking his breaks in the cafeteria reading a book, just to serve as a role model." This is a perfect example on how to show that when you invite Merit Pay to your school, that there will be positive outcomes. A Janitor took his personal time to read a book to encourage kids to do good just from getting a bonus. It seems fair to say that when you offer higher pay or bonuses to the equation it just becomes better for the students since the teachers and faculty work harder. The Ladue School District in St. Louis County has had performance pay for teachers for more than 50 years without legal challenge. The district assigns teachers points based on yearlong evaluations, then doles out raises accordingly. Last year, for instance, Ladue paid $200 per point to a maximum of 17 points, plus an across-the-board raise of $600. That means the highest possible raise given last year was $4,000. Ladue teachers earn between $35,000 and $94,152 a year. Stated by SIRS KNOWLEDGE

SOURCE. This is a perfect example to show how Teachers "make the beds that they sleep in". If a teacher doesn't try they don't get the points for their salary, while other teachers do receive those points, they either get jealous enough to quit or try harder to engage the students. Once they realize they are getting a substantially lower pay they will try harder, they will raise from that little bit they get to something better, and once the teachers feel that success there is no going back from there.