Educators Deserve A Raise, But The Proposed Merit Pay Bill Has Serious Flaws (al.com)

By Minority Leader Rep. Craig Ford

When the state Legislature returns to Montgomery in two weeks, one of the top issues will be a cost-of-living pay raise for educators. Both parties agree that the money is there, and now is the time. But there are some major differences between what both party’s are proposing.

House Democrats will propose a 5 percent pay raise for all teachers, support personnel and retirees. The bill some Republicans are working on is much different. It would not only fundamentally change how teachers are paid, but would also create an expensive and intrusive new bureaucracy.

Their bill, called “the RAISE Act,” would do three things: create a merit pay system for educators, change the tenure laws and create a new government agency called the “Longitudinal Data System” that would collect and analyze “individual level student and workforce data” for all students and educators in our K-12 schools and the two-year community college system.

The tenure changes in the bill would require a teacher be employed by the school system for five years instead of the current three. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it would permanently end tenure for support personnel. That decision doesn’t make any sense. It undervalues the work our support personnel do, and demoralizes them.

The merit pay system has major problems. The way it would work is that teacher pay raises-and even employment decisions-would be decided based on three things: student test scores, evaluations conducted by principals, and surveys filled out by students and parents.
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more: http://www.alreporter.com/educators-deserve-a-raise-but-the-proposed-merit-pay-bill-has-serious-flaws/