"Race To the Top" Grants Mean Teacher Merit Pay

To be eligible for billions in Federal money under the Obama "Race to the Top" initiative for public schools, states must not prohibit merit pay systems for teachers. Indiana's legislature repealed its prohibition of teacher merit pay (and did not set a limit on charter schools pushed for by the Democrats) but individual districts like FWCS have union contracts which don't allow the use of standardized test scores in teacher evaluations. Teachers don't want pay tied to raw test scores, which is understandable. But there are ways to tie salaries to improvements in test scores.

Although the state is now in compliance, presumably FWCS as a district will be ineligible for federal money unless they change their stance. With contract talks coming up let's see how they react. I predict they'll react along the lines of the Washington, DC union , which voted down the offer of six figure teacher salaries based on objective evaluations to preserve their seniority system.