Scoring a Connection

So maybe we now have a slightly clearer idea of who will be deserving of merit pay in the future, thanks to this Davis Brooks column discussing the Obama education plan. In it, he portrays teachers who deserve merit pay as "the ones who develop emotional bonds with students" and bad teachers as "the ones who treat students like cattle to be processed".

So, as per our discussion last Tuesday, how do you quantify the quality of -- in this case -- an emotional bond with a student? Can I get $100 merit pay for every time I "high-five" a kid? How bout $200 for every hug? Let's hope not.

Brooks weasels out of this "emotional bond" argument somewhat when he states soon after that "...the problem is that as our ability to get (test) data has improved, the education establishment’s ability to evade the consequences of data has improved, too. Most districts don't use data to reward good teachers."

So, in summary, emotional bonds with students ought to lead to higher test scores and teachers will be rewarded for these higher test scores, but only because they came by way of emotionally connecting with the kids first. That way, no one has to feel bad about connecting teacher pay to test scores. Am I getting that right?