Report hits issue Sink, Scott agree on: merit pay for teachers

[Freddie Stubbs]

TALLAHASSEE - Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Alex Sink don't agree on a lot.

Here's one exception: both gubernatorial candidates support paying public school teachers based on their performance in the classroom.

But this area of common ground has come under new fire, with the release of a study showing that performance-based pay for teachers does not translate into improved outcomes for students.

Last week, researchers at Vanderbilt University's National Center on Performance Incentives released the results of a three-year study of a bonus program for 300 middle-school math teachers in Nashville. Half of the participating teachers were eligible to receive bonuses of up to $15,000 based on their students' performances on a statewide standardized test. The other teachers were not eligible, representing a control group.

more: http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/sep/27/new-report-hits-one-issue-sink-scott-agree-on-meri/news-politics/

[onethatcares]

1. just asking and it's off topic but.

what has Alex Sink said about her overseeing of the SBA? Maybe we should tie her pay into her performance. As far as I'm concerned you can only cut the education budget so far, sell so many lottery tickets, have so many bake sales and car washes before your schools are fried. There's nothing a teacher can do at that point.

I think we are at that point.

[Orlandodem]

2. Sink doesn't believe in the Senate Bil 6 fiasco. Sink believes that any merit

pay plan must have the support of teachers and be developed at the local level, not in Tallahassee by the Dean Cannons and John Thrashers of the world (and the rest of their ilk).