The administration of Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Haslam last week pushed through a plan to change the minimum salary schedule for teachers — a schedule that, come 2014, will no longer automatically reward experience and advanced degrees.
On the surface, the new education pay plan sounds like one that doesn’t value education — at least not that of the teachers. But Haslam says the new pay scale and its state-mandated minimums will free school districts to better reward performance and to better fill hard-to-staff positions.
The decisions and policies on how to measure performance and how to “better reward” it will be up to the school districts and county commissions. That seems fraught with peril — especially if county commissions are involved.
The administration is also pushing, and the state school board has approved on first reading, another plan that will raise the bar for becoming a teacher and then keeping the job. In addition to stiffer requirements for first-year teachers, Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman wants to make teachers pass a licensure test. And he wants to make license renewal dependent on a teacher’s performance, as determined by an evaluation and student test score data.
Another reading is needed for final passage.