yeah there's no way in hell that "merit pay" is where we should start talking about education.

"to me this is merely a diversion from the real issues involved in our crumbling education system."

I TOTALLY AGREE - In Detroit (or near there) the schools were asking parents for light bulbs and toilet paper? I can't see how lacking the basics can be addressed by ANYTHING a teacher does.

There has to be a good metric for evaluating teachers performance.

Since the "new" thing is bottom up - why not let the students grade the teachers? There is opportunity for a little mayham and some students might not be fair but . . ..

When I heard Bill Press make this into a big deal this am like he's greatest Obama supporter in the world (HQ for the Obama gen & all) i felt like he was merely shilling the "merit pay" deal like he shilled a bunch of Hillary arguments against Barack. And now he's shilling this. Well, I have to say my blood boiled a little, because I think I see right through it.

I'm not quite sure why the President got into this argument, and I'm opposed to discussing how to help teachers teach better, but to me this is merely a diversion from the real issues involved in our crumbling education system.