Above all, teacher unions have resisted merit pay in order to keep the focus on their top concern — the need to raise the floor on low teacher salaries.
"If you're not paying teachers a competitive salary to begin with," Jackson said, "then, any professional compensation plan that you come up with on top of that is not addressing the need to get the best teachers in, doing the best work that they can do."
The unions may have to take on the merit pay battle first, though.
Congress is moving to include a measure calling for performance pay and teacher evaluations, based on standardized test scores, in the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law being negotiated in Washington right now.
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