[Vision2020] iSTARS (light)

[Shirley Ringo]

Visionaries:

The Senate defeated Superintendent Tom Luna's pay for performance bill today by a vote of 19-16.  The entire process has taken a tremendous amount of time.  There were two proposals put forth by Mr. Luna, iSTARS and ISTARS light.  In my opinion, both reflected Mr. Luna's lack of educational experience.  The first included a thinly veiled attack on teachers by requiring that they give up their continuing contract protections in order to advance.  After that part of the plan was dropped, there remained the unfortunate proposal to use a single multiple choice test for the measure of student progress upon which to base teacher pay.

I hope that Superintendent Luna will be willing to work with teachers, school board members, administrators, and others to develop a credible pay for performance plan.  There are good plans in other states - they were years in the making.  It is a complex issue.

Shirley Ringo

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