LETTER: Dallas merit pay program doesn’t work for many teachers

Your Jan. 27 editorial lauded the Dallas school district’s pay for performance system, saying it was beloved by teachers. Horse-hockey.

In the first three years of the “teacher excellence initiative,” we lost 5,000 — yes 5,000 — teachers. Why? They either retired or moved to a suburban district where merit pay didn’t exist. Why? It’s really called, “stacked ranking,” and it fails everywhere it is tried in private business.

It turns kids into data points in binders. TEI has a student survey that is unreliable and unfair yet is used on teachers. Micromanaging of teachers is de rigueur now, and so we continue to lose one in five teachers every year.

SAT and ACT scores are flat. NAEP scores (the Nation’s Report Card) have dropped.

You should listen to a teachers union because the rich non-educators who have taken control of the Dallas district want to monetize your district next.