What about "merit pay"?

Apparently the CW reaction to this bit of election news is that Obama shot himself in the foot making this case to a union crowd. But really, it's a pretty nuanced position when you dig into it. I wonder what Dennis Kelly would really think of this kind of merit pay?

MSNBC: Obama Calls For Merit Pay

In an address to the National Education Association Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Obama risked a strong reception and broke from the other Democratic presidential candidates by calling for merit-based pay -- an issue unions are typically against. But Obama did not receive any audible boos, and he actually received some applause because of the way he framed his stance.

"The most controversial aspect of any discussion of teacher compensation is merit pay," Obama said, "and I know that folks here object to the idea properly that if you are being measured and paid simply by how the child is doing on a test without taking into account what that child is coming to the school with, ... if it's all based on assessments made on No Child Left Behind, then it's not fair to pay teachers who are pouring their heart out based on some of these arbitrary measures."

He pledged to work with the NEA and teachers' unions to determine a new system for accountability. "What I want to do is work with teachers, and where we can work with teachers to come up with ways to set those kinds of professional standards, then I want to be part of that process,” Obama said. “But I'm not going to do it to you; I'm going to do it with you."