Let kids fire teachers

I'm beginning to think that going to school in Indiana is a lot like having a first-class ticket on the Titanic, except the Titanic had a somewhat competent captain and crew.\nTake for example, the education budget. Gov. Mitch Daniels has proposed to freeze funding for the next two years on all levels, while Democrats just want to give everyone a little more money, but not enough to fill everyone's needs.\nYeah, that makes sense. I think next election I'll just vote for candidates by using eenie-meenie-minie-moe.\nBut political squabbling aside, I believe that several counties in Minnesota and other states have come up with a great idea that could actually leave the education budget with plenty of money to spare.\nBasically, counties in Minnesota, Tennessee and Colorado pay elementary and high school teachers according to how well they teach instead of how long they've taught, according to a Feb. 8 article on http://cnn.com. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has already proposed to institute the plan in his state as well.\nAnd if the states that elected stars from the great 1987 movie "Predator" support this idea, it has to be good!\nI attended a wonderful Indiana public school for all four years of high school (and a God-awful Indiana Catholic school before that), and am in my second year here at IU. For the most part, I was very impressed with my teachers, especially in high school.\nBut let's face it: There are a lot of teachers who are lazy because they are close to retirement, just there to coach sports or because they couldn't make it in the circus and had to go to teaching school.\nTherein lies the one problem with performance pay: Teachers set their own goals and then meet them. And if they want to make their classes easier every year to get test grades up and get a little more green in their pockets, they can.\nWell screw that. I say Indiana needs to make performance pay into law but give power back to the people -- or students, in this case. Let us rate the performance of each teacher at the end of the year.\nThey'll get the message eventually.\nWhere performance pay could really save the state money is on the college level, at least from what I've seen here.\nHow many of us have had to deal with professors who seem to resent students because they interfere with their research or professors who force you into taking "requirements" you don't really need or just plain don't understand the English language?\nWhy should they be getting more and more money each year just for phoning it in?\nWell, I say it's time to cut them off from the teat of Indiana tax payers!\nThis state is in serious economic trouble, and everyone needs to be pulling their own weight to save it.\nI can't think of any other profession that consistently awards people just for showing up every day for 20 years, regardless of performance.\nYeah, a lot of professors would complain as a result, but mostly just the pretentious ones who don't do much work anyway. So let them go to another state that will reward slacking. The teachers who want to earn their keep and can actually do something to stop the state's brain drain will stay in the system, and the state could save millions in pay raises every year.\nThat makes a lot more sense to me than partisan politics.