Tips anyone?

So, we are reduced to asking for more money just because we are good at our jobs. Its a job, get paid and be happy you aren't one of the many who are unemployed. With that very harsh outlook on jobs, lets take a more sophisticated view on the subject. In the case of teachers in regard to merit pay, I feel its complete BS. If the system was not so broken in the first place you would not need merit pay. Paying teachers more money because they are doing well isn't a new subject. Its akin to getting a commission as a salesman, but salesmen do not get tenure and keep their jobs forever. If they do poorly they get canned, unlike teachers in most systems. The side against merit pay acknowledges this, knowing that some teachers would rather keep their pay instead of getting kicked out because they are not "successful". I am completely for separating the metaphorical chaff from the wheat in school systems, but there is something in the way. Teachers unions and their love of tenure, job security and "equality for teachers". This is important, but its a double edged sword that is hitting more teachers than anything else. Making room for new teachers and removing poor performing teachers could really help school everywhere. Under performing teachers that get more pay than other teachers because of tenure and seniority is absurd in most business practices. Its basically greed and borderline corruption. Having someone paid more just because they have tenure AND they do not support the student body proficiently is terrible. In a perfect business model, everyone works to support the business and each worker has a specific job. If these workers do not do their job well enough, everyone suffers. The same is for a school, if the 5th grade math teacher is terrible, and the 6th grade teacher is amazing, the 6th grade teacher will probably have to teach and restate what the students should have learned in 5th grade. Another way of looking at is an assembly line. If you are trying to make the perfect student, every person on the line should be excellent, and do what they do very well so the next person does not have to work harder or more. This is assembly line is how schools are supposed to work, except problem schools do not have this occurring. Yet, merit pay is only an incentive to do better, not a means to an end. If teachers ONLY got merit pay, then slacking teachers would not get enough money, and would then have to teach better to make a living. Yet,there are barriers from making progress in this field. Teachers unions, again are the "bad guy" in all this. Dominating the vote for what changes in schools. Merit pay is not the main force here, but a mere drop in the ocean of the main issue, teachers unions. Without serious reform in teachers unions, changes like merit pay will NEVER happen on a grand scale, no matter how much happens. Merit pay would be a good alternative, but at the current state of our school systems, would never ever work. So, merit pay is engulfed by other issues, and will not be solved. The only way this will be solved is if every teacher had free choice and was not held down by a union. Too bad about that. In the end, Merit pay is a cute idea, but will never work under the circumstances in all schools because of internal scuffle.