Additional Education Funds Would Pay for Performance-Pay, Signing Bonuses

Mar 04, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News) House and Senate leadership announced Monday details of a plan to satisfy Governor Jon Huntsman's request for additional education funding. The plan calls for using $25 million from a State Board of Education rainy-day fund to pay for singing bonuses for new teachers and performance-pay pilot programs. Even though a task force charged with studying the controversial issue hasn't yet convened, Senate President John Valentine says it's not premature to fund the programs.

"What this does is this provides seed money to try different programs, so that the task force can actually measure those programs," Valentine says. "Without the ability to measure those programs, we wind up with a situation where we're just guessing. "

The plan calls for using $25 million from a State Board of Education rainy-day fund - $5 million pay for $1,000 signing bonuses for new teachers and the bulk of it, $20 million, to pay for performance-pay programs created by individual school districts. This concerns UEA Executive Director Susan Kuziak.

"UEA very publicly and eagerly agreed to participate in the performance-pay task force, because we think it's right that teacher-pay needs to be looked at in a broad, systemic way," Kuziak says. "So we are disappointed all these little plans about teacher pay are being put in place, rather than something systemic where professional judgment is part of the decision-making."

Senate and House leaders agree on most of the plan, but differ on one point. The Senate caucus wants $1 million to go to an alternative teacher certification organization, the American Board of Teacher Excellence, to try out its "Distinguished Teacher" program as a possible model for a statewide performance-pay program. Republican leadership met Monday evening to hash out their differences.

Email to a friendPosted in KCPW Newsroom. Copyright 2008 KCPW