Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor

As a teacher, this piece of Utah legislation particularly caught my eye.

HB181, if passed into law, would make teachers salaries dependent on student test scores.

Legislators are expected to approve the $15 million for education, but with the caveats that the ability to fire teachers be made easier, that there be a tie to math money to teacher bonus programs and that vouchers be created for exit exam tutoring by private providers.

Rep. Stephen Urquhart’s (R-St. George) bill sets aside $7.5 million for math programs in grades four through six in schools that serve disadvantaged students. It directs the money into pilot programs, some of which would offer bonus pay to teachers whose classes see gains on tests and some of which would center on improving teachers’ knowledge of math. The remaining $7.5 million in HB181 would pay for exit exam tutoring.

The right wing lobbying group, Utah Taxpayers Association, supports the bill because it backs the application of free-market principles to education. The conservative think tank The Sutherland Institute also supports the bill, which the Utah State Board of Education opposed on a narrow vote. “Merit pay is a sound management principle,” said Mike Jerman, Taxpayers Association vice president. “It works in the private sector and will work just as well in the public education sector.”

However, teachers may then be reluctant to teach disadvantaged pupils, including the mentally disabled and mainstreamed children, if pay is based on test scores. Additionally, Utah Education Association President Pat Rusk is concerned HB181 will cause teachers who need extra pay to focus on getting students to pass math achievement tests, to the detriment of achievement in other subject areas. But Jerman said the bill’s proponents mean for its principles to expand beyond math. “This is basically just a starting point.”

If a precendent would be set by passing this piece of legislation, requiring employees–specifically teachers–funded by tax dollars to be held accountable to the criteria outlined in this bill, then ALL employees who receive salaries funded by tax dollars should have their salaries based on perfomance—-INCLUDING LAWMAKERS—-with performance criteria outlined and passed into law. Who would judge them? Their bosses – the public, of course.

Lawmakers will then have to live up to their agreement to the statement that “It works in the private sector and will work just as well in the public [education] sector.”

As the saying goes, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander”.