We Treat Monkeys Better Than Teachers

Hat tip to the great Nancy Flanagan. Here we see two teachers under a merit pay system:



"Wait!" screams the reformer (or the newspaper editor). "That's not what we mean! We want to reward the monkey who obeys our commands better than the other monkeys!"

Yes, you do.

ADDING: Hat tip this time to the great EduShyster. Because everyone knows in the "real" world, merit pay is totally freakin' awesome:

A few weeks later, the Cravath lawyers assembled and unanimously voted her into the partnership. She received no signing bonus, no guarantee, no special deal. Instead, Cravath is paying her according to the firm’s seniority-based, lock-step system, which sets the spread between the highest- and lowest-paid partners firmly at 3 to 1. 

Contrary to the insistence of people who sit in think tanks and newspaper offices all day and think they know what's going on in the "real" world, pay based on seniority is not that unusual. What's really unusual is merit pay (p.6):

 For example, in the 2005 NCS, only 6% of private sector workers were awarded regular output-based payments.

Facts are stupid things.