seniority system. The dedicated instructor is paid no more

seniority system. The dedicated instructor is paid no more than the incompetent deadhead who merely puts in hours and keeps the kids reasonably quiet.

The governor believes there has to be a better way. He plans to ask the General Assembly for $500,000 in the 1984-86 biennium to fund a pilot project in perhaps three school divisions to see if the merit pay and master teacher plan can bring about needed improvement.

The timing of his request could scarcely be better. It comes on the heels of the dismal report on the quality of education in America by the National Commission on Excellence in Education. The report, titled A Nation At Risk, concludes that our schools are being engulfed in “a tide of mediocrity,” and that the quality of our public instruction has deteriorated to the point that it might pose a threat to our survival as a nation.

To Robb’s credit, his expressions of alarm over the condition of the state’s school system pre-date the commission’s report by more than a year. He first raised the subject in his inaugural address in January 1982.

But the commission’s report has catapulted the issue. at least for the moment, to the forefront of the national agenda. President Reagan has seized upon it. A year ago he was about to abolish the Department of Education, and then suddenly “quality of education" emerged as an issue with undeniable electoral “sex appeal. Indeed, it might be called the political equivalent of Bo Derek. The president has energetically climbed on the merit pay and master teacher bandwagon.

There are, to be sure, problems which must be solved and questions which must be answered about the proposals.

The National Education Association and, to a less extent, the American Federation of Teachers worry that merit pay will create divisiveness and rivalries within the profession. Civil liberties groups are concerned that it may open new and subtle avenues of discrimination against minority teachers.

Then too, there are the very practical problems of how, and by whom, the master teachers will be designated and the merit pay increases awarded. And there is the ever present question of how fairness will be assured as these processes are implemented.

Besides all this, it must be remembered that this is a novel idea. In Virginia novel ideas are seen by many legislators as, almost by definition, potential political booby traps to be avoided at all costs. At the very least, Robb and Casteen have a major selling job on their hands in order to get the pilot project through the General Assembly.

But the bottom line objective, to use an overworked phrase, is to improve the quality of our public instruction. Robb strongly believes that with teaching, as with other facets of our free-enterprise system, the key to excellence in job performance is incentive. Beyond that, he believes that the key to a strong education system is the development of teachers who excell.

The theory is, without doubt, sound. The pilot program would test whether or not the results will match the theory.

The General Assembly should approve the Robb proposal. If it does, we may just possibly have the long overdue experience of seeing, as in the ancient days, the other states following Virginia’s lead on a vitally important public policy initiative.