Many Texas schools no longer eligible for teacher pay-for-performance plan
Less than half of the 1,150 schools that earned pay rewards under Texas’ landmark teacher pay-for-performance plan the first year will be eligible to participate the second year because they failed to maintain their performance ratings as passing standards went up. Approximately 675 schools will have to terminate the bonus payments, which range from $3,000 to $10,000 per teacher. As a result, other schools now will have a chance to secure the state grants simply by developing a plan to distribute the money to teachers based on test scores and other improvements. The state grants are for schools with a high percentage of low-income students. To qualify, those schools also have to earn a performance rating of "exemplary" or "recognized," or their passing rates on the state math or reading assessment must rank in the top quarter of Texas schools. The ratings are based, in part, on how many students passed each portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. In recent years, the number of questions required to pass has been increasing, and fewer schools are achieving the highest performance ratings needed to continue in the state program. Cash awards in the program range from $40,000 for many elementary schools to $300,000 for some of the biggest high schools in the state.
According to Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency (TEA), some schools might have been disqualified when they no longer met the requirement that they are among the top half of schools with the largest percentage of low-income students, but performance, was the biggest factor. Opponents of the $100 million merit bonus plan, which is the largest in the nation, argue it is hard to know whether schools are any better for it yet. Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association believes massive turnover from year to year will make determining progress even harder. "How effective can a merit pay system be ... where teachers have to think what is here today could be gone tomorrow?" he says. "Essentially, folks are still doing the same things at schools, and sometimes they get money for it – sometimes they don't."
The plan nearly suffered a fatal blow earlier this year in the state legislature when house members, with the backing of teacher groups, voted to eliminate the plan and use the money to raise teacher salaries across the board. However, after negotiations with the state senate, funding for the program was preserved, although a second incentive pay plan that will be open to all schools (not just those with low-income students) was delayed until 2008-09. Money that was to be used for the second plan will instead be used to give all teachers a pay raise of about $450 this year. Total funding for the second year of the low-income-schools program will be $97.5 million, with a similar amount appropriated for next year. Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, who authored the incentive pay legislation, insists the program has proven more popular with teachers than was predicted by the state's leading teacher organizations. However, teacher groups in Texas vigorously oppose the idea of rewarding educators based on student performance. They prefer blanket pay increases as an incentive to all teachers. Aimee Bolender, president of the Alliance AFT teacher association in Dallas, said educators getting the grant told her the program didn't change their classroom practices. "In some cases, it destroyed trust among colleagues and had a negative impact on teams of people working together," she said. Last year, 53 schools that were selected for the program rejected the grants, mainly because of teacher opposition.
Dallas Morning News
By Terrence Stutz
[Full story]
[Editor’s Note: Teacher merit pay plans that take student performance into account, especially those that rely on standardized test results, are often unpopular with teachers and can lead to litigation. When Miami-Dade County in Florida adopted such a plan, the teachers union filed a lawsuit contending the plan violates Florida’s Constitution. For background on the suit, see below.]
[NSBA School Law pages on Miami-Dade teachers union performance pay suit]