01:00 AM EST on Friday, February 11, 2005

Regarding Mark Patinkin's Jan. 30 column, "Merit-pay hikes -- that's business in America:"

In a perfect world, one could make a case for instituting merit pay for teachers. But this is not a perfect world.

As a public-school faculty member for over 30 years, I will grant that not all administrators are unscrupulous. However, give that kind of control and decision-making power to some administrators, and the door is open for favoritism, patronage, fraternization, discrimination, cronyism, political maneuvering, and manipulation by management -- causing on-the-job discord among teachers concerned with individual performance.

Merit-pay plans are contentious and divisive. They rarely have objective criteria. Merit pay is nothing more than a means of cloaking management favoritism in meritocratic mumbo-jumbo. The results are that a healthy group dynamic is undermined, morale is lowered, and higher-level employees receive the bulk of the money available.

Mr. Patinkin notes that a decision-making committee of "principal and peer review" can solve all this. But it's no secret that an unscrupulous principal can hand-pick teachers and parents to form a rubber-stamp committee, ready to endorse his decisions. Teachers know that some teachers do an outstanding job in the classroom but are not popular with the administration, because they challenge the status quo.

Institute merit pay and those who compromise the integrity of their teaching to curry favor with administrators and parents will be rewarded. Taskmaster "unpopular teachers" who maintain the integrity of their classrooms (and whose students can demonstrate achieved goals of learning and attainment of critical skills) will be punished.

JOSEPH N. BUFFARDI

Cranston