Merit Pay for Teachers... sounds good but...

President Obama said a few weeks ago that he supports merit pay, essentially bonus' for teachers that are doing a good job. However, the reason why many teachers and unions oppose this measure is that the way teachers are evaluated -- who is doing good, bad-- is that their student's standardized test scores are measured. Test scores are as much a reflection of how the teacher does as much as how much TV, MTV, YouTube videos, video games, etc. the students tune into for the week.

Would it be any surprise then that the "best teachers", the ones deserving more merit pay under the proposal, would generally be teaching more AP (Advanced Placement) students. Those students generally come to the teachers as smart kids and leave generally about as smart as they came.

I agree that better teachers should be paid better relative to those that are barely doing the job, but there must be other, more effective means to measure this. Of course, that would take more time and scrutiny, to do class visits, look at lesson plans, etc. and while that is a more effective way to judge a teacher, it is time consuming and costly so it is the exception to the rule in evaluating teachers.