Teachers, officials to assess merit pay
7/26/2010

DAYTONA BEACH -- With state and national pressure building to tie teachers' pay to students' performance, Volusia union and school administration officials are getting together to figure out the best way to do that.

The yearlong exercise will be funded by a $125,000 American Federation of Teachers grant to the Volusia Teachers Organization, the local teachers union.

"I think the general thinking right now is there needs to be some sort of relationship between student learning and teacher effectiveness," said union president Andrew Spar. "We want teachers to be part of that."

A controversial legislative attempt to tie teacher evaluations and pay to Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores died in April when Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the bill. Federal guidelines for Race to the Top education reform grants, for which Florida has applied, require a link between teachers' pay and students' performance.

Spar worked closely with Volusia School Superintendent Margaret Smith in applying for the grant and she said Thursday "it provides an excellent opportunity for us to work together collaboratively."

An 18-member committee of teachers and school administrators will review the district's current methods of evaluating teacher performance, Spar said, and how to incorporate student performance into them.

Teachers now are paid based on their college degrees and classroom experience.

"There's not a perfect model anywhere in the country," Smith said of programs that link teacher pay with student performance.

She expects whatever system is developed in Volusia will draw on multiple measures of student performance rather than a single test and will look at how much a student improves during the course of a school year.

Spar said there's an advantage to having Volusia develop its own evaluation system rather than having one imposed by lawmakers or state officials.

"This is being teacher-driven and teacher-led rather than (Department of Education)-driven and led," Spar said. "If we can come up with a fair way to figure out how student assessment impacts teacher evaluations, teachers are going to be comfortable."

Spar said the committee's recommendations likely will be tried out in a pilot program at selected schools before the evaluation system is changed countywide, which would require a vote by the School Board and teachers.

Source: The Daytona Beach News-Journal