A Bonus

I've been having an email discussion with a person close to me about teachers and their compensation.  I pretty much espoused the same positions I took over my 10 years on a school board, negotiating several collective bargaining agreements.  They had a lot to say about the unfairness of merit pay systems and the poor preparation of many children who do not come into the classroom ready to learn.

So I think the government has provided an answer----massive money for education as part of the stimulus and retention bonuses for teachers.  If AIG is too big and too important to fail, and we, the taxpayer/owners of the corporation have no say in compensation, how much more important is the huge education industry??  And surely no one would argue that we should ever, in any way, short-change the children.  So my solution is to get back all the AIG bonuses, or at least the half of them that their C E O requested they repay, and divide that money among all the teachers----no questions asked, just like in the financial sector's compensation where performance apparently does not matter.  And if the government wants to be really generous to these people who make such a difference, they'd make these bonuses exempt from income tax as well!!