California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening the state Legislature to adopt merit pay for teachers or he will go to the public to convince them to vote for it as an initiative in an upcoming election.

Because the governor hasn't laid out the details of what merit pay is and how it will be evaluated, his posturing makes merit pay meaningless except as a political bargaining tool.

But, if we are to pay teachers on their merit, then the state will have to take the following steps to avoid being tied up in the courts for years.

1. Students will have to be tested before each semester begins to verify that their skills are at the grade level that the teacher is teaching.

2. School administrators will have to support teachers in dealing with problem students who disrupt their classes.

3. The state will have to remove all non-English speaking students who are not American citizens, especially if President Bush's immigration policy changes are adopted.

There is no fair way to judge anyone's ability to teach a sixth-grade curriculum if even a modest number of the students are not capable of doing sixth-grade work. Students should have to prove they are proficient in Algebra I before they are allowed to enter Algebra II. Then, and only then, can you fairly judge a teacher's ability to teach.

School discipline will have to be enforced at a higher level than it is now. Repetitively disruptive students can destroy a class, regardless of the teacher's expertise, especially when they know the teacher is vulnerable to merit pay pressure. Remember, many students do not want to be in school, and most of the classes cram in 30 or more students per room.

It would not be just to expect California teachers to teach American educational standards to a group of students when many of them cannot even speak our language. If Bush's guest-worker, virtual amnesty plan is adopted, each worker will be allowed to import five family members into the United States. In California alone, that could be 5 million, or more, non-English speaking students flooding our school system in the very near future. This would create chaos unless the federal government provided separate schools for them. Some think this should be done now.

You have a mighty task ahead of you, Governor, and you are going to need the cooperation of the teaching core, administration, parents, and even the students to get it to work. And that's not going to happen if it's not fair.

—— Gil Noble lives in Vista.