Last updated on 2012.01.29
District 31 legislators held a crackerbarrel in front of several dozen constituents this morning on the BHSU campus. All three Republican legislators said they do not support Governor Dennis Daugaard's proposal to give $5,000 merit-based bonuses to the top 20% of teachers in each school district in South Dakota. Addressing the moderator's question first is Senator Tom Nelson, followed by Rep. Chuck Turbiville, then Rep. Fred Romkema:
Senator Nelson says educators have emphasized to him the collaborative nature of teaching. He thinks a few teachers out with merit pay could easily get in the way of team teaching and sharing ideas.
Rep. Turbiville, who served on his local school board for ten years, says, "I cannot imagine trying to run a school on merit pay. I don't think it can work." Rep. Turbiville would prefer to leave such pay decisions to the local superintendents and boards. "Unless I see something really improving on this, I can't support the merit pay bill."
Rep. Romkema won't support the merit pay proposal in its current form, either. He says that in 35 years of management experience, he has tried merit bonuses and longevity pay "with mixed success." Rep. Romkema thinks the Danielson evaluation framework still leaves room for subjectivity. The overall proposal, says Rep. Romkema, needs much more discussion than time in the current session allows.
Now all three Lawrence County legislators leave some wiggle room, referring to the Governor's HB 1234 "as it is" and "in its current form." We may still see their ayes on some amended form of this bill, but if we can take these three Republicans at their word, Governor Daugaard's merit-pay-for-20% proposal will not win, even among his own caucus.
Update 2012.01.29 08:37 MST: District 3 (Aberdeen) Republicans Rep. David Novstrup and Sen. Al Novstrup support the merit pay proposal. David does so with a wiseguy nod to President Obama's support for teacher merit pay. On this issue, President Obama happens to be as wrong as Governor Daugaard.
Al dismisses as flawed all of the research showing merit pay doesn't work, on the basis of one program in New York that didn't do what he wants to do. Some people are going to believe what they want, no matter how much evidence we show them.
Good for these guys! Let's actually talk about how we should be working to create the teaching and learning conditions necessary for kids and teachers to be successful. That happens at the LOCAL level, not mandated by the state. The local stakeholders are better positioned to know the needs of school districts not the Governor and the department of ed.
I spent Friday evening in a session of teachers talking about the Danialson model and what should have been a very positive step forward for teachers and their professional practice has now become a corrupted/perverted method of establishing "merit" and dollars for a very few educators. The frustration and the disappointment with Daugaard's entire Education Plan was pretty obvious.
It's one thing to go out and spend money to innovate and work towards better results. It's quite another to WASTE $15 million dollars of our hard-earned tax dollars (not the governor's money) to institute a program that has been repeatedly proven to give NEGATIVE results.
What really PISSES ME OFF was the decision to save a few dollars to eliminate alternative school funding. Our troubled teens deserve a way to finish their education too. Take some of that $15 million and figure out a way to help them.
$15 million would hire 375 teachers at $40K each. That could put 2.5 FTEs dedicated to alternative school programs in each district. More bodies can offer more programs.