Columbus
Dispatch...
Ohio Senate debates
teacher merit pay
Some legislators insist rules should be part of state budget
Friday, June 3, 2011
The debate over whether a merit-pay system for teachers will ultimately
be part of the new two-year state budget is far from over, with some
Senate Republicans saying they would like to see it reinserted in some
form.
The Senate this week pulled from the budget a plan backed by the House
and Gov. John Kasich that would implement a new pay system for teachers
based on factors including student test scores. The proposal was
similar to language included in Senate Bill 5, the new law that also
significantly weakens collective bargaining powers for public workers.
A coalition of union supporters is expected to challenge the law on the
November ballot, and senators are aware of the criticism that placing
merit pay into the budget would partially short-circuit that effort.
“We’re trying to respect the right of the people to decide on a policy
matter in November while at the same time trying to address real
concerns about having high-quality, effective teachers in the
classroom,” said Sen. Shannon Jones, R-Springboro, the sponsor of
Senate Bill 5.
Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, the Senate’s point person on education
issues, said the merit-pay language is important, “but we need to
figure out how to do it in such a way that it doesn’t make anyone think
that we’re trying to do an end run around Senate Bill 5. Hopefully, we
can get something back in.”
House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, called it “crazy” that
the language was pulled.
Salary schedules that give teachers automatic raises based on years of
experience or educational attainment appear to be gone. But the key
issue remains: What should the new system look like?
“There is no question that we can do a better job of evaluating our
teachers than strictly on the basis of seniority,” Lehner said.
Senate leaders also say they want to ensure that whatever they do, it
doesn’t interfere with the 302 districts that are already working on
new teacher-evaluation systems required to get federal Race to the Top
grants.
“We want to honor the commitment that almost half of the school
districts in the state of Ohio have already worked out with their
teachers unions and administration,” said Senate President Tom Niehaus,
R-New Richmond.
Tom Ash, top lobbyist for the Buckeye Association of School
Administrators, warned lawmakers that the state could end up with two
separate pay systems.
Ohio’s teachers unions are fighting the proposal, arguing that by 2014,
all schools will implement some type of new evaluation system through
Race to the Top or the federal Teacher Incentive Fund grants.
“Everything they want to get out of an evaluation system that is linked
to student performance will come out of the two federal programs,” said
Darold Johnson, an Ohio Federation of Teachers lobbyist. “If you are
talking about pay, compensation and evaluations, that is all going to
happen in the time frame. We don’t need Senate Bill 5 for that. We
don’t need it in the budget.”
If the system is developed locally, with teachers and administrators
working together, it will be easier to implement, Johnson said.
But Ash said he is not confident that without Senate Bill 5 or budget
language all districts will implement a merit-pay system.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans also plan to make additional changes to
public construction reforms, even though a construction-law expert and
Ohio State University blasted their decision to rework a proposal that
Kasich officials and House Republicans said could save time and money.
Attorney Jeffrey Applebaum, a construction-law expert who was the
facilitator of the Construction Reform Panel that in 2009 proposed a
series of changes to Ohio’s 133-year-old statute, said he was not fully
behind the panel’s recommendations, but called the Senate’s proposal
“far worse.”
“We have an opportunity to make it so much better,” Applebaum said.
Ohio is the only state that solely uses “multiple-prime contracting,”
which hires separate contractors for general construction, plumbing,
electrical work, heating and cooling.
Applebaum said 80 percent of what the Senate did is similar to the
House-passed budget, but a few differences related to bidding and
subcontractors will add significant time and cost.
“This isn’t magic,” he said. “Everybody else in the country knows about
this.”
Ohio State University is currently building its massive medical-center
expansion under a pilot alternative construction method. Jack Hershey,
an Ohio State lobbyist who also served on the construction panel, said
the Senate plan “puts so many roadblocks in place” that he isn’t sure
it would work for future construction.
Niehaus said further changes will come next week, ensuring that the
language matches that of the commission’s 2009 report.
Asked why he didn’t keep the House-passed language, Niehaus said he
wanted the Senate plan based on the 2009 recommendations. “We had a
(panel) that spent a year studying the issue. They were a cross-section
of interested parties.”
Read it at the Columbus Dispatch
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