Teachers salaries should be based on their students academic performance Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim In developing and supporting your position be sure to address the most compelling reaso

Teachers are the backbone of any nation and the current and future societies heavily depend on the teachers and schools to become more successful. The prompt claims that teachers’ should be paid based on the academic performance of a student. I strongly disagree with the claim and advocate for a different measure to evaluate a teacher’s performance instead of using a student’s performance as the sole criteria to pay a teacher.

To begin with, the idea to pay a teacher in accordance with a student’s performance is a highly biased criteria. Are the teacher’s themselves choosing their students like a doctoral professor choosing his Phd students or teacher’s simply go to teach a class irrespective of the students as seen in schools and undergraduate colleges. If it is the former, the teacher could receive more salary/funds, if his Phd. students are exceptional and receive grants from companies or universities for their doctoral thesis. In this case, the teacher or professor might spend the received grant for buying items necessary for the project or research of the student. The university paying the professor could offer promotions based on the number of students and the projects that the professor has obtained in the past as well as the present. In that case, in a sense, it can be said that the professor’s salaries are based on the student’s performance. But it does not mean that if a current student is performing ineptly due to some reason, the professor should receive a lesser salary than what he was getting previously. His previous accomplishments still hold true and hence he should undoubtedly be getting a higher salary.

However, if we take the case of a school or undergraduate teacher, in most cases, they are expected to teach a class of 40 or 50 students irrespective of the grasping potential of the students’ and receive salaries regardless of the academic performance of the student. Say, if a usually high performing student performed badly because he was sick. Now the academic performance of the student has gone down. This does not mean the teacher was at fault. He did his best in teaching the students and it is up to the students to follow up on their performance. Surely the teacher must have asked the students if they have any questions or doubts regarding the topic he taught. The teacher is the same as everyone and cannot ‘read his student’s minds’ and follow up on each student individually. Hence, a student’s performance is not representative of a teacher’s performance and hence the teacher’s salary should not be based on the academic performance of a student.

Further, what if the student is not interested in the subject being taught and is actually forced to study because of social or peer pressure. Will the teacher be held accountable still? A student in his school may not like advanced mathematics like trigonometry and he might be more interested to learn biology. If the school does not offer him a choice to choose his subjects, then the student is stuck with mathematics which he does not like and hence would not apply more focus on it when he is preparing for his tests. This would obviously reflect on his performance. The teacher is at no fault here as he did his best in teaching mathematics to the students of the class. He cannot force the student to learn what he does not like. This case still presents the point that a student’s academic performance is not a gauge of the teacher’s performance.

In sum, a teacher is one of the most important components of a society. In Hindu mythologies, there is a saying that a teacher’s importance is next to a parents and only then comes ‘God’. This stresses the importance of a teacher and under no circumstances should a teacher’s value be depreciated.