Fla. to Link Teacher Pay To Students' Test Scores

The centerpiece of the new effort, known as E-Comp, requires all school districts in Florida to identify the top 10 percent of each variety of teacher and award them a 5 percent salary supplement. For an educator earning the average teacher salary in Florida of $41,578, that amounts to just over $2,000.

Controversy surrounds how that top 10 percent of teachers will be identified.

Those who teach FCAT subjects -- basically math and reading -- will be ranked exclusively according to how much their students have improved their scores over the previous year. Teachers will earn points when they advance their students from one level of proficiency to another.

Those who teach other subjects must also be ranked according to "objective" measures that the districts are supposed to design. State officials overseeing those efforts are pushing to have teachers evaluated on test scores and other objective assessments, even for subjects such as music and art. A music test, for example, might involve playing a selection and asking students what type of music was played, officials said.

"We don't have all the answers today," Education Commissioner John Winn said when asked how music, art and special-education teachers will be evaluated. "But we will work with teachers to develop a system."

Although only the top 10 percent in each field will receive the 5 percent salary supplement, all public-school teachers in Florida will be affected by the new pay policy because their annual evaluations will rely "primarily" on "improved achievement by students," according to the new rules, a criterion that is expected to be often measured with standardized tests.

"I know it adds pressures, but what profession doesn't add pressure for performance?" Winn asked.

Schools in Houston, Denver, Minnesota and elsewhere have similarly tried to link teacher pay to performance, but those efforts have been either less focused on test scores or narrower in scope.

The Minnesota plan, enacted last July, is voluntary, and thus far more than a third of the state's 339 school districts have expressed interest in the system, state officials said. Districts that join the effort must base 60 percent of teacher raises on a handful of factors, including student test scores.

Education officials in Maryland and Virginia said that no such financial incentives for teachers are required statewide and that they know of no local school districts that operate that way. The District does not directly link teacher pay to student performance either, spokeswoman Roxanne Evans said.

Although Florida school districts are seeking to meet a June 15 deadline for compliance with the new policy, some teachers unions said delays would be inevitable because the pay plans must be worked out in county contract negotiations, which are likely to prove difficult.

One of the biggest questions, aside from how teachers of subjects such as special education and art might be measured objectively, is whether the point system will fairly evaluate teachers in schools where students are impoverished or lack English skills.