Questions & Answers

The Maine Schools for Excellence initiative involves more than 450 educators of 5,500 students in intensive professional development; developing constructive performance evaluations; and building performance-based pay systems that encourage effective teaching, continued professional growth and improved student learning.

 

Questions

  1. What measures of students' academic performance will schools use as they design their evaluation and performance-based pay systems?
  2. Have the schools participating in the initiative had to renegotiate collective bargaining agreements with teachers to allow performance-based pay?
  3. Which teachers will participate in the professional development associated with Schools for Excellence?
  4. What steps are Schools for Excellence districts following to set up performance-based pay systems?
  5. Is Schools for Excellence a project that will transfer to other schools and districts?

 

Answers

  1. What measures of students' academic performance will schools use as they design their evaluation and performance-based pay systems?

Ultimately, schools will use a variety measures they determine to be valid and reliable as part of any decision on teacher evaluation and compensation. Those measures will likely be customized for each teacher based on grade level and content area.

While the performance pay systems haven't been finalized, they could take into account state assessments like the SAT and the New England Common Assessment Program, and classroom assessments like Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, the Developmental Reading Assessment and computer-adaptive tests designed by the Northwest Evaluation Association.

Other job performance indicators could include classroom observations, portfolios of teaching accomplishments, student surveys, and graduation and attendance rates.

  1. Have the schools participating in the initiative had to renegotiate collective bargaining agreements with teachers to allow performance-based pay?

Performance-based pay systems impact the collective bargaining agreements currently in place in most of the participating Schools for Excellence districts. As a result, school districts are working to develop written Memoranda of Agreement with their teachers' bargaining units to address these effects and improve collaboration.

One participating district, Regional School Unit 74 of Anson, recently negotiated a new contract with teachers that allows them to choose between a performance-based salary track and the traditional salary track based on years of service.

  1. Which teachers will participate in the professional development associated with Schools for Excellence?

All teachers and a number of principals at the 18 participating schools will participate in Take One!, a rigorous, job-embedded professional development experience offered through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Teachers can apply their Take One! work toward the involved process of earning their National Board certification, an advanced credential that indicates a teacher has met a set of exacting standards customized by grade level and subject area.

School for Excellence teachers are eligible for $500 stipends when they submit the teaching portfolios they develop as part of Take One! to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards for evaluation. The teachers who submit this work are also eligible for three graduate-level credits.

  1. What steps are Schools for Excellence districts following to set up performance-based pay systems?

Schools for Excellence participants are using a gradual approach to develop and implement new evaluation methods and performance-based pay.

This fall marks the start of Take One! professional development and the design process for the evaluation and performance pay systems. The design of each system will vary by district and be developed largely by district steering committees that include teachers, administrators, teachers' association representatives, school board members, parents, community members and others.

The professional development, meaningful evaluations and compensation system are meant to form a continuous loop of feedback and support to help teachers continuously improve their craft. The systems are based on regular measurement; intensive and focused professional development; and fair and sensible recognition and reward.

  1. Is Schools for Excellence a project that will transfer to other schools and districts?

The Teacher Incentive Fund grant that is funding the Schools for Excellence initiative does not provide for scaling up the initiative. The grant does, however, require that districts develop plans to sustain the new systems they're developing long-term. The participating districts also expect to share the knowledge they gain from their experiences with other districts as they go about doing similar work.

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