Published Monday, February 08, 2010

Perdue says most teachers like pay based on performance

By Walter C. Jones

Morris News Service

ATLANTA – Gov. Sonny Perdue said Monday that most teachers like the idea of basing their pay on how well they teach and that the leaders of education organizations should listen more closely to their members.

Perdue made his comments to reporters the morning the performance-pay legislation, Senate Bill 386, was introduced by Sen. Don Balfour, R-Snellville. It provides the most details yet about a shift in teacher pay Perdue outlined last month.

Perdue's office sent a questionnaire to some teachers across the state, and he said he was surprised that 20,000 of them said they like his idea.

"The leaders, I don't think, sometimes don't want to listen to what their members are saying," he said.

In response to critics who say he drafted the bill in "relative secrecy" with the advice of few educators, the governor said now that the proposal is before the General Assembly that the public, including interested teachers, will have their chance to recommend changes through their local legislators.

"The way the process works, the legislature writes the laws. I provide a framework and an idea and a concept that I believe is good for education," he said.

One aim of the bill is to improve student performance by rewarding the educators who influence it the most. Under the proposal, teachers judged the most effective could earn as much as high school football coaches, according to Perdue.

Today, a teacher after 10 years earns about $48,000 compared to as much as $66,000 under his proposal, according to the state's application for the federal grant program Race to the Top.

Securing a share in the Race to the Top funds, an estimated $462 million, is a secondary goal of the performance-pay proposal, Perdue said.