I think this is a bit like wishing that gravity would go away. What is the mechanism that would lead to this outcome?

A wonderful idea, indeed! Just one snag? What exactly makes a good teacher?

All great and pewerfull genie, I wish for Peace on Earth and good will toward men. ana'ponyana'redwagonana'gijoewthakungfoogripana...

Machine may cover all the human beings in furtherdays, be careful.

Good teachers care about making kids smart and don't give a damn about being rewarded for making them smart! If they still exist, then they are not voluntary members of unions.

I feel compelled to point out that teacher's unions do not exist purely to negotiate salaries. If they did, they would be abject failures.

Wouldn't that be nice to be able to build such a machine? Teachers' unions - not teachers - are the great obstacle to educating American kids. And I say that as an ex-teacher who left teaching due to the horror of how union pressures and left-wing politics trumps what is best for students every time.

The problem with merit-based pay is this: we already are lacking the numbers of teachers we need. It's already hard to fill the positions. So upping requirements and making it more hellish to teach will only serve to once again lower the supply of teachers. It's a labor market, and labor markets follow supply and demand just as readily as any other markets.

Why a machine? Why not a policy? It seems to me a peculiar way to get things done, whether you agree with it or not.

Teachers Unions are evil. They try to make teacher's jobs easier, so that the teacher can be lazier and still get paid the same small amount. How can these unions not be voluntary. FDR!!! How could you have such awful judgment???

Where I'm from, teachers are a dime a dozen. But also where I'm from there's the local teachers union, a state teachers union, and a national teachers union. Maybe school administration people and school board members should be required to join the union- maybe that would help disarm the union.

Machine = School Choice

Are there any unions which do not protect their poor performers? Since poor teacher performance hurts kids, we can all see the problem.

The mechanism for getting rid of teacher unions is school choice, including vouchers and charter schools. If we have a completely free market in education, with decentralized power separated from local political influence, the unions will not be able to compete. At my charter school, each teacher is paid according to an individually negociated salary and bonus schedule. We have attracted a remarkably talented and capable group of teachers without a union. Teacher unions, like vultures, will not go away until the rotting corpse on which they feed is buried.