IEA says tiered certification could take away teacher rights

The Idaho Education Association is speaking out against the State Board of Education’s proposed plan to change the way teachers are evaluated, saying the proposed tiered certification plan could pose as a problem for teachers statewide.

Under the two-part plan, teachers will be evaluated twice each year, and will be moved to a designated tier best suited for the results of each of their evaluation results.

Pocatello IEA president Tom VanDeren said this is an attack on teachers’ bargaining rights, saying it takes bargaining terms of salaries out of the hands of local school districts and puts it into the hands of those at the state level.

“Education is not a business, and it can’t be run that way,” VanDeren said. “We all got into this profession because we all want to help the students and the kids, but pitting teachers against teachers is a foolish way to attack this.”

VanDeren said this model, where teachers will be paid based on their tier performance will cause teachers to compete against each other which is detrimental to moving forward.

He said if this plan passes this legislative session, that could pour $20 to 40 million into local school districts which would go toward teacher pay. In total, he said this comes out to a total of about $175 million statewide just for this plan.

“The other issue we have with this, is where this money is coming from,” VanDeren said.

For the past few years local school districts have been tightening their belts, working with little to no funding being passed to them from the state.

“I understand what they are trying to do, I get it. But I also don’t want this to be presented as this wonderful thing. I think a lot of educators are falling for that trap thinking, ‘oh, I can make this certain amount of money in this certain amount of time’ but that is just not going to happen,” he added.

American Falls school district superintendent Dr. Ron Bolinger said there are more questions being asked than information about this proposed plan being disseminated so it’s hard to make a decision until school districts find out more details from state board officials.

“I would say there are many, many questions concerning it and right now, we need time to work these things out before we pass it forward,” Bolinger said. “Then it’s almost as if they’re saying, ‘ready, fire, aim’ instead of ‘ready, aim, fire.'”

Bolinger said if this is really helps provide funding toward local school districts to raise teacher’s salaries, that could help make Idaho schools more competitive and possibly draw more teachers into the state.

He said Idaho is currently facing a quick exodus of teachers into neighboring states who are paying higher salaries.

VanDeren agreed Idaho is seeing less teachers entering into the profession or even staying in the state, voicing his concern that Idaho teachers are underpaid.

But, he feels these teachers might not see this money since the proposed evaluation model will not present enough objectivity in the evaluation process, therefore we might see teachers move up and down the professional ladder unfairly.

“If someone receives one mark against them by an administrator, they could move down from the ‘mastery certification’ level to the basic certification level and that could cost them around $7,000 per year,” VanDeren added.

Tonight state superintendent Tom Luna will speak to Local News 8 anchor Karole Honas about this plan. Chris Cole will have more details tonight at 9 and 10 o’clock.