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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Visionaries:</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Shirley Ringo</FONT></DIV>
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