The House Education Committee has voted this morning to introduce a new version of the teacher career ladder bill, clearing the way for a full hearing; the bill, following the lead of the governor’s education task force, is designed to raise teacher pay over five years while also tying the increases to performance measures. Marilyn Whitney, education aide to Gov. Butch Otter, outlined a series of changes from the last version of the bill. Among them:

Teachers would be involved in determining measures of student achievement on which they’d be evaluated; starting teacher salaries for the first two years of the five-year phase-in would be slightly increased; master premiums would be available to non-instructional staff such as counselors and audiologists and to charter school teachers; the state Department of Education, rather than deans of university colleges of education, would review a random sample of teacher evaluations to ensure that administrators are conducting them according to state standards; a $2,000 a year, five-year premium now paid for teachers who achieve national board certification would be retained, rather than eliminated; teachers would be involved in committees working on standards for master teacher premiums and leadership premiums;  and administrators would be required to take courses on the state’s teacher evaluation framework as part of their re-certification process.

In addition, Whitney said, “There was concern about whether or not the career ladders would be funded and what would happen if it were not funded in a given year. So what you will see ... is language that if the career ladder were not to be funded, the professional endorsement would not be required for a teacher to have renewable contract status.”

House Education Committee member Rep. Ryan Kerby, R-New Plymouth, said he still has concerns about the master teacher premiums, “the $4,000 a year for just a few teachers.” He said that will cause “divisiveness,” with “one teacher out of the 5^th grade getting $4,000, other teachers not getting anything. There’s going to be resentment, there’s going to be less collaboration than there is now. … This is going to be a very bitter pill if this goes through. … We would like to see those folks work together.”

Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, said he’d like to see full projections of the costs. “What kind of revenue growth will be necessary to ensure that we can meet those demands?” he asked. Whitney promised to bring all that information to the committee. “We will provide numbers and updated spreadsheets to you for the bill hearing,” she said.