By Andi TenBarge
TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS – The state awarded $30 million to 1,300 schools Thursday that will be used to reward thousands of teachers for high performance.
Click here to see the full list of schools receiving grants  http://thestatehousefile.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Schools.pdf  The money is the first distribution under a new teacher performance program that Gov. Mike Pence said he will aim to expand in 2015.
“Indiana teachers and schools work each and every day to make a difference in the lives of our children,†Pence said in a statement. “This commitment to excellence brightens both the futures of our young people and that of our state, and I fully support, as I did on day one in office, rewarding their tireless work.
Schools with students who achieve a total passing score of 72.5 percent or above on the ISTEP+ or end of course assessment or 5 percent or more growth in graduation rates from the previous year qualify for the grant.
Schools will receive the following dollar amounts based on performance for the sole purpose of distribution among teachers who have been rated as effective or highly effective.
The General Assembly approved the $30 million as part of the current, two-year budget. Pence said Thursday that he will ask lawmakers to expand funding for the program when they write the next two-year spending plan.
After looking at the list of schools with teachers being rewarded for high performance, can it be true there are only teachers at Signature to be so rewarded in the EVSC? Hopefully, I missed something.
I don’t think missed anything, I’m all for rewarding outstanding performance, but I would like to see an incentive offered to good teachers to take up the challenges presented by students who are not so motivated as our “best and brightest”, too.
Exactly. The students are a primary part of this measuring stick. A really great teacher can’t teach a rock to stand up and do match. But a really smart student might get on the internet or have is family or friends teach him Calculus. Yet the teachers get rewarded for having smarter students while the other teachers with less capable or motivated students get the stick?
I like the idea of giving rewards as an incentive but I just wish that there was a more fair way to divvy up the money.
The teachers can’t really help it who lives in their school district. Maybe with this new system the teachers will be fighting to get to work in the schools with the smartest kids.
Signature is NOT part of EVSC.
Can’t wait to hear or see Duckworthess and Smith’s and the ETA’s spin on this. Of course TripleDipper Mike and the hood doctor probably won’t say anything and hope it goes quietly away and the ETA will blame the EVSC school board because the teachers don’t get enough pay and their benefits are insanely low…..
I see where Posey county, as well as Gibson county being well represented in that report!
The US Army used to (and may still) have something called “proficiency pay;” you were tested annually in your Primary Military Occupational Specialty (PMOS) which is your job title. If you scored in the upper percentiles of your group, you were given additional pay as a reward for knowing your subject. Of course, this testing was based on individual knowledge, something that the teachers’ unions seem to want to avoid. I see no reason that those who administer tests shouldn’t be required to take one in their specialty each year.
There is one fault in the thinking of rewarding teachers/schools.
I look at all these kids as like farm ground. There are many types of soil(kids), and these variations (soil/kids) will only produce what they are genetically made of. You can not expect that 400lbs of fertilizer(best teacher/best school) to produce evenly across all those different types of soil(kids). If you do, you would never make a good farmer! One can not punish the teacher/school when they have the lesser soil/kids and that’s the best that soil/kids can produce!
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