The strike by Seneca Valley School District teachers has stirred up strong feelings about teachers, their pay and benefits plan as well as ever-increasing property taxes.

Supporters of the striking teachers suggest they have critically important jobs and work much longer hours than most people believe. Critics note that few workers in the private sector work such short days, have three months of summer vacation and also receive annual salary increases of more than 6 percent, which is the teachers union's latest demand.

One letter to the editor from a professional in the technical field notes, "Ihave to work 46 weeks out of the year, compared to their 37....It took me 20 years to get my fourth week of vacation, but even entry-level teachers get 11 weeks off for summer break and 20 days for holidays during the school year."

On the other side of the debate, another letter writer says that his wife, who is a Seneca Valley teacher, "spends the majority of her evenings on school work, correcting papers and fielding parent phone calls...she works 55 to 60 hours a week...she and many other educators leave the building well after 5 p.m., carry work home to complete after dinner."

Yet some residents living near schools suggest that parking lots are nearly empty by 3:30 p.m.

Clearly, some teachers put in extraordinary effort and are superior educators. But not all teachers put in the same effort or are equally effective. Yet, they all are paid the same wages, based on years of service and levels of education.

Merit pay, which has long been rejected by teachers unions, is quietly gaining ground around the United States.

The Seneca Valley strike has revealed some people's frustrations with paying ever-higher salaries across the board to all teachers — whether they are hard-working and effective or simply going through the motions. Merit pay, in principle, can help resolve some public frustrations with teachers' pay by rewarding the better teachers more and the sub-par teachers less.

In practice, it is difficult to judge a teacher's skills and effectiveness. But it is not impossible.

In any school, the teachers themselves know who the best educators are. The principals know who the better teachers are and who on the staff is not particularly effective. Students and parents also have a pretty good feel for the better teachers. Objective test scores also must play some part in the ranking process.

Despite the challenges of rating teachers, many taxpayers probably would be comfortable paying better teachers more, while also paying less-effective teachers less.

Despite the union pay program that suggests equal and uniform skills, not all teachers are equal. It's no different than the range of skills found in other professions.

In Minneapolis, the teachers union is working with Minnesota's Republican governor on an experimental program that rewards teachers partly based on classroom experience.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, "a consensus is building across the political spectrum that rewarding teachers with bonuses or raises for improving student achievement, working in lower- income schools or teaching subjects that are hard to staff can energize veteran teachers and attract bright rookies to the profession."

InWashington, the Department of Education has awarded 18 new federal grants to schools and districts in 19 states to develop incentive pay programs for teachers.

Just last week, the New York City teachers union and Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed to a plan that will award bonuses to teachers based on test scores of children at schools with mostly poor children.

Merit pay programs for teachers also are happening in Denver, Tennessee and Florida.

The nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA), labels merit pay or any system of compensation based on teachers' performance as "inappropriate."

In a speech last summer, Demo-cratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama told the national convention of the NEA that performance-based merit pay ought to be considered in public schools.

Public sentiment appears to be moving away from the official position of the teachers union. Even some teachers, most likely the more motivated and more capable ones, are embracing the idea of merit or performance pay.

And why wouldn't they? It makes sense that the teachers who are the most capable and most effective at educating students should make more money than their less-talented or less-dedicated colleagues down the hall, who now make the same salary as the top teachers.

Teaching staffs at schools are not like the fictional Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average. Some teachers are better than others. And merit pay would allow the better teachers to be rewarded for their efforts and results. Merit pay also might motivate some other teachers to become better.

As teachers union demands and taxpayer support for universal pay hikes reach a breaking point, merit pay for teachers is an idea whose time has come.