Utah's public school teachers who work in school districts receive pay increases according to a pay scale which recognizes the college degree they have earned and the number of years they have worked for their school district. These pay scales are referred to as “Steps and Lanes”. We all believe those two measures should make teachers better. But, wouldn't it be better to actually evaluate how well they teach and pay more to those teachers who excel in their teaching evaluation?
Senator Adams (R) has proposed a bill which, over the next 8 years, would gradually eliminate steps and lanes and replace them with locally designed pay scales which reward teachers for better annual performance evaluations.
One of the outstanding features of this bill reduces steps and lanes while allowing local school districts and charter schools to establish their own pay scales. It also lets local districts and charter schools establish the mix of which types of evaluation measures they will use. It calls for 60% of the evaluation to be based on student's growth in learning. The remaining 40% can be made up some combination of the principal's evaluation, parents evaluation, students evaluation and peer evaluation.
Beginning in the 2014-2015 school year, teachers will be evaluated annually as performing in one of four performance levels. No teacher may receive any kind of salary increase if he/she is rated in the lower half of the performance levels. Teachers in the higher performance categories may receive higher pay. The bill also allows salary supplements to teachers assigned to difficult schools, critically short teaching areas, or who have additional academic responsibilities.
The bill would require publication of a grade for each school and the ratings of the teachers in that school. It would also allow any principal to reject the transfer of any employee to his/her school.
Thank you, Senator Adams, for this rare and wonderful bill which provides broad-based performance evaluation and a transition to real pay for performance.
As of this writing the bill had passed the Senate Education Committee and was awaiting debate and a vote on the floor of the Senate.
