More than 250 teachers from public and private schools in the Philadelphia area, and from Pittsburgh and other cities, gathered at the National Constitution Center on Sunday for a two-hour discussion about the state of teaching and education, part of a national conversation called "Education Nation."
With little electronic clickers that registered their choices on certain topics, 48 percent of the teachers in the Constitution Center's Kimmel Theater voted that merit pay for teachers should "in some way" be based on student performance - a middle-ground selection that also included choices of "completely" and "not at all."
They also chose poverty and family issues, plus lack of student motivation, as the biggest hindrances to learning; and from a list of five responses, they voted that teachers could perform better if they had more time to work with and learn from colleagues and had additional technology.
