Is this something not found in any industry? Private bonuses have always been given to reward good performance. Even Christmas bonuses can amount to a gift certificate for a turkey or the keys to the latest Lexus.

You should be able to monitor teacher performance regardless of whether they are teaching a hard, lackadaisical class or a studious class. My company uses unannounced lesson monitoring and student comments. You can tell if this teacher is really putting in the effort.

If they are teaching a despondent class, you can still monitor the lesson plan, activities and student performance compared with before. If a teacher has a studious class but is not as prepared or works on materials as hard, then they are not worth as much bonus.

It sounds like a cop-out to say this is a road-block when all industries face the same problems. Why is the ESL industry any different? The fact is that schools skimp to pocket profits and dont worry about a few disgruntled teachers, as contracts are for a year and 100 new teachers are waiting in the wings.

Actually, students like variety of teachers as long as the turnover is not too frequent. The idea that you train teachers and the start-up cost on a teacher is too much is ridiculous. You can have a new teacher up and running on the first day. Rarely do schools invest that much in a teacher. Few schools buy a plane ticket upfront and the apartment is usually rented on a contract with an agency regardless of who is living in it.

So why pay a bonus anyway? Why pay for more than the market will bear? Its a dead-end question. You use them, then send them on the plane back to Kansas and get the next batch in. Its not hard to figure out.

I do have sympathy with the schools to a degree. There are teachers that can do stupid things in class and run off good paying clients. Thats where the real risk is. For these few hippies (actually hippies are the mellow ones you probably mean hell raisers) that can be screened like many companies screen applicants: you check references.