Merit pay/due process bill sidelined, but could still pose a threat

By Len Feldman

Faced with overwhelming opposition from organizations representing teachers, school boards and organized labor, the state Senate Education Committee has decided not to approve Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "merit pay/due process" bill.

By holding SCAX1 1 without a vote, the committee keeps the bill from advancing further in the Legislature. The bill, however, continues to pose a threat. Its author, Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster), has indicated that he may amend the measure in hopes of securing more support and reviving it.

The bill would allow districts to tie teacher pay to student test scores and extend teachers' probationary periods from two years to 10 years.

Sen. Jack Scott (D-Pasadena), chair of the Senate panel, said the governor's merit pay proposal hits his daughter, a fourth-grade teacher in Santa Clarita, like a "slap in the face."

The fact that the one teaching-related proposal to come out of the governor's office is this one "is like saying that the problem with schools is the teachers."

Among those testifying against the measure was Marcie Launey, president of the Sacramento City Teachers Association. Recounting her district's difficulty even finding enough substitute teachers, she told lawmakers, "Teaching right now is not attractive. … We need to make it simpler, not more complex."

SCAX1 1 "would hurt students by dissuading good teachers from staying," said Etta Martin-Lee, a member of San Juan Teachers Association.

This bill "would pit teacher against teacher when we know collaboration is vital," said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell in written testimony. He warned that the bill would make the profession less desirable just when the need for new teachers is the greatest. "California needs more teachers, especially in light of retirements of a large segment. … We want to encourage them to stay with professional growth, coaching and leadership."

Sen. Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch) said teachers don't require the kind of financial incentives included in the bill. "Teachers come to work motivated. They got into the profession to help students meet their dreams." The problem is, "they can't afford [to stay] on a teacher's salary and with the other stresses they have in a somewhat dysfunctional system without counselors, without nurses, without administrators there to help them and back them up. Many are leaving the profession for those kinds of reasons."

To help kill SCAX1 1, CTA's grassroots network of legislative coordinators is urging members to contact members of the Senate Education Committee and continue bolstering CTA's key arguments against the bill:

• The governor's proposals on education, including his merit pay plan/due process attack, are a smoke screen designed to divert public attention away from the fact that he broke his promise to fund public schools adequately.
• The merit pay scheme is ill-conceived. It ties pay to student test scores, creates a 10-year probationary period and bars districts from using seniority in any personnel decisions. All these will make it even harder to attract and retain teachers — especially in schools of greatest need.
• The plan provides no incentive for students to do their best work.
• The plan would use classroom dollars to hire more administrators.
• No accommodation has been made for training administrators in how to use this type of evaluation system. It would cost taxpayers millions.
• By eliminating the current unbiased pay scale, which is based on educational training and teaching experience, the bill would invite abuses like those that caused districts to create the single salary schedule in the first place.
• Alternative pay systems can already be bargained under current law.