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A merit pay program that incentivizes teachers is about to get a test run at the local level. Two Wisconsin school districts are moving forward with a plan that would reward good teachers with salary bonuses in the 2012-2013 school year.
The Cedarburg and Hartland-Lakeside School Districts will be amongst the first to institute merit pay programs for educators in the Badger State. Bonuses will be tied to teacher evaluations – instructors that earn high marks from administrators will be eligible for extra compensation in the following school year. In Cedarburg, these additional payments range from $1,700 to $2,200.
The district’s hope is that pay-for-performance bonuses will make the area more attractive to the state’s best teachers. An influx of new talent would not only bolster the teaching corps, but also raise the bar for the city’s existing teaching staff. However, previous studies suggest that merit pay programs can be a mixed bag, especially when they are enacted as the centerpiece of educational reform.
On Thursday, the final recommendations of three task forces dedicated to improving public education in Wisconsin are expected to be unveiled. This includes the work of the Wisconsin School Accountability Design Team, a group saddled with creating a metric by which the state’s schools will be graded.
The ultimate goal of this task force is to create a comprehensive and transparent system that helps parents, students, and citizens better understand the quality of their neighborhood schools. Ultimately, it would gauge the progress of both students and teachers and provide performance comparisons across districts, states, and even countries. It will take the place of the beleaguered No Child Left Behind program, a federal mandate that often failed to create meaningful positive change in the state’s public schools.
However, creating a metric to include all these goals is the difficult part. Issues like the inclusion of different subjects, determining which tests will be used to gauge progress, and how to weigh low-performing and underprivileged students has caused turmoil design team meetings that have occasionally become contentious.
Democrats Turn Waste, Fraud and Abuse Commission into Partisan IssueGovernor Scott Walker’s Waste, Fraud and Abuse Commission (WFAC) has issued their report and found a potential $445 million in savings for Wisconsin’s taxpayers annually. But as if to prove Weiss’ Law, Democrats in Madison are already complaining about the report.
Weiss’ Law was named after former New Berlin School Board member Matt Weiss who made the observation, “Nobody ever thanks you for not spending money.” Given the history of past efforts to root out waste and fraud in government including the Grace Commission and other commissions and reports, Weiss knew what he was talking about. Read more>>
The legislation, now on its way to the Governor for his signature, will change the process of open enrollment. The law will allow for a freer transfer of students between public schools across districts. This legislation expands the formal application process from a three week span to three months and include provisions for year-round transfers for students that aren’t happy with their current schools.
