In today’s paper I read an editorial about how we should wisely consider where we (as a society) spend our money on education. Correctly the author made the point that smaller classes are not proven to yield better results in education. (afaik there is an American study that actually proves that smaller class sizes have no correlation with better education results). The author also rightfully pointed to making teachers better as an important part to making education better.

But then he lost me (actually he got me swearing loudly in my kitchen) when he made the point that paying teachers based on performance would make them better teachers.

I am actually and almost physically sick of the notion that performance based pay induces higher performance in people. If that was true it would be called PAY BASED PERFORMANCE! And it is NOT! It is actually a lot more complicated than that. At least in knowledge based work, most of us are naturally motivated to do our best, to “perform”, to reach goals, to make a difference. That’s what makes us get up in the morning. It is a question of hygiene to match pay to performance, because I do want my “performance” to be seen and valued and money happens to be a universal measure of appreciation. But that is not the reason I come to work in the morning and spend a lot of my waking moments (at home or at work) thinking about how to create truly great software. I don’t for a minute think that anybody on my team will do better work, if we dangle a big bonus in front of him or her. If we consistently overlook his or her contribution (in monetary terms or other) he or she will leave – and we don’t want that – that’s why at conject we spend a lot of time and management attention on setting people’s compensation and bonus. But we do that in full appreciation of the complexities involved.