Striking teachers returned to the classroom in Chicago this week, but the controversy surrounding teacher evaluations in North Carolina is not likely to end anytime soon.
Teachers’ groups in the state oppose merit pay systems that only consider student test scores, but there’s no consensus about how to reward the best educators.
Legislation calling for public school reforms, which would have mandated performance pay, passed the N.C. Senate but was halted in a N.C. House of Representatives committee earlier this year. The issue features prominently in both N.C. gubernatorial candidates’ education platforms.
Current law gives each local board of education the option to develop its own performance pay plans.
But school boards such as the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education continue the traditional policy of paying teachers based on experience, board member James Barrett said.
Merit pay with a stronger emphasis on student test performance, among other contract issues, prompted the Chicago teachers’ strike.
“I don’t have a problem conceptually with differential pay, but there are so many different factors involved that make it very difficult to come up with a system that makes it fair,” Barrett said. “The difficult part of the issue is deciding how you differentiate teaching.”
The law states that teachers who receive merit bonuses should demonstrate student improvement, additional responsibilities or employment in understaffed subjects.
Rodney Ellis, president of the N.C. Association of Educators, emphasized the need for a reward system based on a holistic approach.
