Ohio+School+District+Adopts+Merit+Pay+for+Teachers

=By Jessica Brown= =//Published in Cincinnati.com//= =//5/18/11//= = = =Cincinnati Public Schools will be the first district in the state and among a handful nationally to link the pay and advancement of its 2,400 teachers to student achievement, district officials announced today.= =The new system – called for by the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers contract agreement reached in December 2010 – is designed to enhance accountability, provide teachers with more feedback and growth opportunities, and focus on strengthening skills that improve student learning.= =At a news conference, district leaders lauded the collaborative process that brought them to this point.= = = =“While legislators are discussing mandating this, it is significant that we reached this milestone voluntarily and in partnership with our teachers,” said Mary Ronan, superintendent of the 33,000-student district.= = = =“It keeps Cincinnati a leader, not a follower,” added Board President Eve Bolton.= = = =District leaders stressed that this is not a “pay for performance” or “merit pay” system. The district tried about 10 years ago to create a pay for performance system but the idea was met with outcry and eventually died.= = = =Statewide employees are balking at Gov. John Kasich’s efforts to incorporate merit pay into education reforms.= = = =“This is totally different,” said union president Julie Sellers “This is not merit pay, this is not pay for performance. It is not based on a single test score.”= = = =Instead, this system offers multiple measures of a teacher’s performance. It gives teachers credit for things they were already doing in the classroom — things like gauging a student’s ability to read a story and then discuss it with the class; art students’ portfolios; music students’ ability to read sheet music.= = = =Those are all things that aren’t measured on standardized tests, but indicate how effective a teacher is, Sellers said. The teachers select the goals along with the principal. Positive evaluations would be required to receive pay increments at most of the levels of a typical teacher’s career.= = = =“This includes every teacher at every school from social workers to art teachers,” said Sellers. “If you base it just on a test score from the state it would only be 27 to 30 percent of the teachers in the district.”= = = =District officials also noted the system won't be a new cost for the district.= = = =School board approval is not required for the system to go into place, however, feedback from board members, the community, and parents may be incorporated into the system during the pilot year.= = = =District leaders said the new system represents a “culture shift” in evaluating its classroom teachers because it puts teachers in the driver’s seat.= = = =Under the new system teachers and principals mutually agree on personal goals for the teacher that will advance student growth and the mission of the school. The previous system was much more “top down,” leaders said.= = = =“It will give teachers a sense of empowerment to the teachers,” said Sellers.= = = =The administration is proposing the evaluation system as a one-year pilot program starting next school year.= = = =Committees have been working for two years to research teacher evaluation system across the country. They pulled pieces from various systems for the Cincinnati version.= = = =Ohio’s collective bargaining legislation Ohio and Kasich’s education reform plans put emphasis on tying teacher pay to student achievement. The federal Race to the Top program, which awarded millions to reform-minded school districts, also includes emphasis on student growth. Cincinnati is ahead of the curve among other Ohio districts in crafting its system to fit those goals.= = = =Changing the teacher evaluation system in Cincinnati was one of the more difficult hurdles for teachers and district administration to agree on, and one of the causes of numerous delays in the negotiation process last year. Linking teacher pay to student growth was among the key reforms that the community pressured the parties to incorporate into the contract.= = = =Nationally and statewide, the question of how to best measure a teacher’s effectiveness has proven to be difficult. In Ohio, students only take state-required tests at certain grade levels and in certain subjects, which some argued doesn’t provide an accurate measure of how good a job a teacher does.= = = =In the end, the Cincinnati union contract left it up to committees of district employees, teachers and consultants to hash out final details of an evaluation system.= = = =All the details of how the evaluations system will work at each school are not yet available. The community has not yet weighed in on the plan nor has the board or teachers union taken on official vote. School board members have reviewed a draft of the plan and will get more details Wednesday.= = = =Community input sessions have not been scheduled yet.= = = = =

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