In some cases, performance-related pay isn't such a bad thing - it gives people an incentive to work just that little bit harder in return for an improved pay packet ... but is it really right that teachers should be paid on the merits of their performance?
The government has recently approved plans to abolish annual pay rises for teachers based on how long they've been working. This means that from September onwards head teachers will have total freedom to top up the salary of their best teachers by however much they feel appropriate, albeit within certain limits.
As well as those plans, the government published more guidance last week, when it comes to teachers' pay awards. Pay rises, that guidance says, should not be awarded to teachers who don't take part in extra-curricular activities ... who don't keep order in the classroom ... or - and this could set the cat among the proverbial pigeons - who don't manage to improve their pupils' examination results.
Employment partner at law firm Weightmans, Mark Leach, says: “There is the potential for fraud, particularly if there is lots of classroom-based work. There has to be the potential for that to increase.
“Where you link performance to reward, there is the potential for performance to be over-egged.”
Potential? No, it's already started. 130 schools and colleges were issued with penalties for cheating in GCSEs and A-levels last year alone. Increase? On the basis that there were only half the number of penalties issued the previous year, it's not difficult to assume there will be more penalties this year - and in years to come.
But penalties aren't the only way of punishing schools who've "over-egged" pupils' performance.
Until recently, parents at Bradford Moor Primary school had been impressed by how well their children had performed their homework tasks. At least they were until they discovered all that homework hadn't actually been monitored properly - for a number of years.
Ofsted took one look at their homework and reported: "Evidence from looking at the work in pupils' books indicates that teachers' assessments of what pupils can do are too generous, particularly in writing.
"This gives a misleading impression of standards to pupils and their parents.
"Some teachers lack the level of subject knowledge, experience and confidence required to teach either literacy or numeracy effectively.
"For too long the governing body has not monitored the quality of teaching and achievement effectively."
At which point Ofsted placed the school in special measures ... and the whole board of school governors has been sacked.
So for teachers planning on raising their pay rate by raising their pupils' performance ratings: let that be a lesson to you.
