Bill Summary:

The bill creates the highly effective teacher bonus program to provide money to school districts, boards of cooperative services that operate public schools, and charter schools (local education providers) to pay bonuses to teachers who are rated as highly effective and to provide monetary incentives to recruit highly effective teachers. The department of education (department) will distribute the money to each local education provider based on a formula that takes into account the number of teachers employed by the local education provider. Each local education provider must submit to the department a report concerning its use of the money, and the department must provide a summary of the reports to the state board of education and the education committees of the general assembly.

CEA Position Rationale: CEA has consistently opposed bonuses especially tied to evaluation system. The evaluation system is not designed to identify educators to pay more. Further, bonuses do not have a track record of success. Finally, CEA advocates not for bonuses but for raising salaries for all and increasing funding for public education.

Legislative Priorities: Accountability and Evaluation System Reform, Prioritize Working Families and Union Values, Attract and Retain High Quality Educators and Improve Educator Workload, Increase Funding and Resources to Public Education and Educators

Tier: 2