Even dancing protesters Tuesday couldn't dissuade the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' board from backing an N.C. House proposal that allows the system to launch a controversial teacher performance pay system without the educators' approval.

But the split vote, 5-4, shows how wary even school board members are. So it's good that Rep. Ruth Samuelson, R-Mecklenburg, has "parked" the legislation she sponsored. More thought, planning and involvement of educators and the public needs to happen before this kind of change is implemented.

Don't get us wrong. The 2007 bill that authorized CMS to revise the state pay system was wrongheaded when it stipulated that teachers should get a vote on the idea. What employees get to vote on how they're paid? But CMS allowed that stipulation in 2007 to get the bill on the books. This 11th hour move to change it, without teacher or public input - and without public school board discussion - felt like betrayal to teachers and has eroded public trust. Several school board members acknowledged that Tuesday, even some who voted to stick with House Bill 546.

We remain skeptical of pay-for-performance plans keyed to tests. But the CMS plan did start with this truth: CMS needs many more highly effective teachers, and must get rid of the bad ones to boost student achievement. Teachers who get good academic results deserve to be well compensated. CMS' system - the current state teacher pay plan - doesn't do that. The result? CMS pays its top teachers only marginally more than its least effective teachers. Too often, top teachers are actually paid less than the poor ones. That's wrong.

CMS Superintendent Peter Gorman has made the case for changing the system to attract and keep highly effective teachers, and to help others improve or leave. He hasn't made a cogent case that the pay-for-performance plan CMS is working on is a fair or effective way to achieve those goals.

Though CMS has been working on other factors to include as teacher performance indicators - including class observations, student surveys and knowledge tests given to teachers - officials haven't provided a coherent picture of how these and other criteria would fit into an evaluation system. Also, we haven't seen where they've calculated this into a teacher compensation plan: Most teachers surveyed say pay is not the main thing pushing them out of the classroom. Working conditions top that list. Not nearly enough is being done to tackle that problem.

And it's still unclear how CMS officials will factor in issues that teachers have no control over - home life, study habits, discipline problems, access to resources. Officials must do so to craft a system that truly compensates teachers on how well they do their work, and reflects how their work boosts student performance.

Now that the N.C. Senate is making a push with a plan to develop a performance pay system for teachers and state workers, it is even more critical that any CMS plan is rigorously vetted. If the Senate proposal passes, the state will spend $1 million to study the idea next year. What CMS is doing could become a model.

More work, especially more teacher and civic involvement, is needed on the matter. And CMS leaders should look for alternatives to the ballooning number of standardized tests they are pushing as a linchpin for this plan. The dancing protesters made a good point: Education driven by testing is a distraction from real education. It is unfair to teachers, students - and ultimately to all of us.