The Sacramento Bee compares and contrasts teacher pay programs in California and Colorado:
Here, the teachers union and the school district have completed six years of negotiation, experimentation and study to come up with a salary system unlike any other. It incorporates concepts Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he would like to see in California - merit pay for teachers whose students perform well on tests and bonus pay for teachers who work in tough schools - as well as several other ways teachers can earn raises throughout their careers. Yet the differences are stark.In California, Schwarzenegger's proposals to change the way teachers are paid have cropped up only in the past five months, and have met fierce opposition from the California Teachers Association. In Denver, the system, known as "ProComp," is the result of years of planning and unusual cooperation between the school district and the teachers union.
Denver prides itself on having done this in a "bottom-up" way. But not everyone at the "bottom" agrees that Denver's system is a good one:
Despite the chance for higher pay, some teachers in the 72,500-student district remain opposed. They say the school district is too disorganized to handle the complex task of tracking student performance and linking it to their paychecks. Others call the system unfair to workers in the teachers union whose jobs are not tied to the standardized tests that partly determine the raises - music and art teachers, librarians, nurses, psychologists and speech therapists.Posted by kswygert at May 13, 2005 11:46 AM