…I’m starting to see a pattern. Merit pay. Performance pay. Value-added. What is so bothersome to teachers (and unions) about these terms is not the words themselves but that they measure merit, performance, and value according to something they don’t like: student test scores. If the job you sign up for is to move students forward academically, how is it alienating/deceptive/inaccurate/whatever to measure your job performance based on how successfully you fulfill that fundamental role? Read the full post here.