Opposition to HB1234 could use some nuance
I can understand objections to the $8,000 math and science teacher bonuses and phasing out continuing contract status, but why are educators and Democrats still complaining about the performance pay piece of HB1234?
Gov. Daugaard’s original HB1234 would have paid $5,000 bonuses to the top 20 percent of teachers at each school district. The best 20 percent would be determined in even parts by test scores and administrators’ observations.
It’s understandable that this plan raised a lot of concerns:
Are tests a fair way of measuring teacher quality?
Will teachers stop working as a team with bonuses on the line?
Can the new teacher evaluation system really be objective?
Will small-town politics color administrators’ decisions?
Teachers, school boards and administrators complained, and a hoghouse amendment was crafted that would allow local boards to create their own performance pay plans, even ones that gives bonuses to an entire school staff, not individual teachers.
(School boards could even refuse to participate if they so choose. I doubt any will refuse. It’s another $1,000 per teacher that school boards get to hand out in prize money.)
Still, some of the teachers testifying last week insisted that bonus pay would hurt collaboration. In their defense, they probably prepared their remarks before they saw the amendment.
The Democratic Party this morning said the hoghouse amendment made “minor changes” to HB1234. On performance pay, I can’t agree.
