Leren van de Summit
Zo had de krant het debat over prestatiebeloning op basis van docentenevaluaties scherp gevolgd en sprak er enkele toonaangevende ministers over, zoals Pascal Smet van Vlaanderen. “We have performance pay,” said Bertil Ostberg, the Swedish education minister, adding that the system in Sweden was highly decentralized, so “the head teachers decide who gets a performance increase.” But he said the culture of egalitarianism in Sweden was a problem. “Too often the heads just give everyone the same. The differences are too small,” he said.
Pascal Smet, the education minister for the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, rejected the system. “I don’t want teachers paid by performance. Every teacher should be good. If you have a bad teacher, you should fire them. That’s just management,” he said. However, he added that attracting talented people to teaching was a big problem — and one that also had an impact on quality.
“Many of our teachers do not have a university degree,” Mr. Smet said, explaining that until recently Belgian teachers were only required to complete a two-year training program, similar to the “normal schools” that trained American teachers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. “That generation of teachers is now retiring, and for the first time in history most Flemish parents are better educated or at the same level as their children’s teacher,” Mr. Smet said.
U vindt het volledige stuk van de NYTimes hier.
