Today in the New York Times we were happy to read that Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts is taking a much needed free-market position on education reform.  His proposed merit based pay system for teachers is a proven market-based design that works everywhere from corporate America to the restaurant business.

Mr. Romney insists that the current pay structure for teachers fails to meet new challenges facing the country, especially the need to produce more scientists and engineers. That is why critical parts of the plan, he said, are giving every student a laptop and recruiting new teachers for math and science.

"I'm looking for change, and I'll spend money for change on the potential that it'll make a difference," he said. "If something doesn't work, we'll try something else. But you can't keep spending more money the same way and expect different results. That's the definition of crazy."

Merit pay is a simple and sound idea. Reward people for teaching better - you will get better teachers. It works in other professions, why not teaching?

But merit pay must not become yet another form of political patronage.  Merit inflation could become a common problem; decades of union pay scales and job security have engendered an A-for-effort, cookies for everyone, no-red-pen teaching culture. When Texas and Tennessee adopted merit pay, principals insisted that all their teachers were above average, which forced those states to shut down their programs as too expensive.

If Governor Romney wants teacher merit pay to work, he must tie it to school choice.  This is the only way to ensure teacher accountability to parents, like how companies in the private sector are accountable to their customers.  Merit pay will elbow teachers toward excellence, and parents, through their choices, will show school administrators what merit should mean.

Education reform must not be a political third rail; if American students are to remain competitors on the world stage, they must have teachers that can compete on the world stage.  What better incentive than pay.

You know what they say; money talks and….um…bad teachers walk.