I always remember fondly my Grade 5 teacher Mrs. Gardin. Her dedication, energy, enthusiasm, and wealth of knowledge were amazing. She encouraged us to learn, challenged us to think, and inspired us to achieve.

In contrast, my Grade 8 English teacher Mr. Dey handed out less than five assignments during the entire school year, and spent his time in class "hanging out." Lessons were seldom taught. But as a glorified babysitter and professional visitor, his salary was the same as Mrs. Gardin's. Junior High band teacher Mr. Woods, who taught music with passion and enthusiasm, did not earn any more than Senior High band teacher Mr. Sinclair, who casually coasted along until his retirement. Yet Mr. Dey and Mr. Sinclair were not bothered by their own incompetence, knowing that a powerful teachers' union would block any attempt to fire them.

This is the injustice which Larry Booi and the Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) wish to perpetuate: paying dedicated, effective and caring teachers exactly the same as teachers who are lazy and incompetent. Alberta in 2002 is still stuck with the same shallow and simplistic "pay grid" which places all teachers in one of 33 boxes, based on two factors. First, whether the teacher has four, five or six years of post-secondary education. Second, a teacher's salary increases each year, to a maximum of eleven years. Without any regard to merit, the teacher's level of education and seniority determine which of the 33 "salary boxes" she or he falls into. Teachers who volunteer to coach a sports team or lead a drama club are paid exactly the same as those who spend no time at all on extra-curricular activities. A math teacher at an inner-city school, where the class average in math rises from 45% in September to 65% in June, is paid exactly the same as a math teacher in a wealthy suburb where the class average drops from 80% to 75% over the course of the same school year.

Only a person blinded by ideology could fail to see the unfairness of the status quo.

The ATA skirts the issue of merit pay for teachers by boasting of a new program which supposedly rids schools of incompetent teachers. The ATA should explain why it introduced this program only in 1999, and why in previous decades it was practically impossible to fire the likes of Mr. Dey and Mr. Sinclair? On the positive side, the ATA has now admitted that it is actually possible to evaluate teachers. If it's possible to measure performance in order to weed out teachers who should not be in front of a classroom at all, why can't performance also be measured to determine teachers' salary levels?

According to a recent province-wide poll, the vast majority of Albertans want the teacher's involvement in extra-curricular activities, as well as student achievement, to be added as factors which determine a teacher's salary. It is not difficult to measure whether a teacher spends a lot, a little, or no time on sporting or cultural events outside of the classroom. Nor is it impossible to measure the degree of improvement (or lack thereof) that is shown by students over the course of the school year.

It's true that provincial achievement tests do not reveal how effective an individual teacher may be. However, what does reveal teaching competence is whether student performance in a particular subject improves. Since 1992, students in Tennessee have been tested at the beginning of the year and again at the end of the year. Teachers are graded based on the progress their students make over the course of the year. This Value-Added Assessment System is fair to teachers because it excludes the influence of all pre-existing differences among students, including race, socio-economic background, intelligence, and previous leaning.

Members of the legal, accounting, engineering and other professions are paid according to performance, competence, and merit. Why should Alberta's teachers be entirely exempt from these considerations? It's time for Alberta to move beyond its shallow and simplistic "pay grid" and start treating teachers fairly. And it's time for the ATA to tune in with what the vast majority of Albertans want and deserve.