Angry in the Great White North

Teaching standards in Australia are dropping:

EVIDENCE that the academic standards of new teachers are significantly lower than a generation ago will underscore a Howard Government push for the introduction of merit pay.

The Education Minister, Julie Bishop, seized on research released yesterday that showed the average teacher trainee in 1983 was more literate and numerate than 74 per cent of age peers. By 2003, that advantage was down to 61 per cent - and the decline was similar for new teachers.

One suggested solution? Merit pay:

Low salaries for teachers were the main culprit, the researchers from the Australian National University concluded. But they said merit pay for good teachers would be more cost-effective in tackling the problem than across-the-board pay rises.

Ms Bishop will pursue the problem with state and territory ministers this year, in an attempt to reverse teaching's status as "one of the few professions that does not reward individual performance".

The ANU researchers, the economists Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan, found fewer high-ability graduates were lured to teaching as pay in other professions outstripped that of teachers.

Needless to say, merit pay is a non-starter for teacher's unions:

The findings are a slap for teacher unions which "have consistently rejected merit pay, and have remained industrially powerful throughout the period in question", the researchers said.

The Ontario Teachers' Federation rejects merit pay as well.

I wonder how literacy levels in Canada break down by profession? Of course, the people at the OTF would rather not know, I suppose.