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The Qualified Economic Offer law should be repealed
and replaced with "a system that both teachers and administrators
agree will encourage teachers to further develop their teaching skills."
That is one of dozens of initial recommendations submitted
to the Governor's Task Force on Educational Excellence this week (March
30, 2004).
The task force's four subcommittees issued their recommendations
to the full group for consideration after several months of research
and discussion.
"The subcommittees studied and debated the issues
with a great deal of public input," WEAC General Counsel and task
force member Bruce Meredith said. "The full task force will now
review the ideas and develop a package of recommendations to submit
to the governor later this year."
The Teacher Issues Subcommittee report states, "It
is clear that the current teacher compensation structure is designed
exclusively to hold down costs and provides no incentive for either
teachers or school boards to improve instructional quality." The
report also said the QEO has caused morale problems for teachers.
The subcommittee did not reach consensus on specific
changes to the system, but agreed that the QEO should be eliminated.
"Increasing teachers' knowledge and skills related
to their teaching responsibilities will improve pupil learning,"
according to the report. "Linking teacher salary increases to teachers'
acquisition of knowledge and skills better promotes this goal than a
system based exclusively on length of service and credits earned."
"WEAC has long advocated for a compensation system that recognizes skills and knowledge, but continues to oppose any system that ties teachers' salaries to student test scores," Meredith said. "Virtually all members of the subcommittee opposed such a system."
The subcommittee report also recommended that the state address increasing
school health care costs, "so the growing costs of fringe benefits
do not make the needed improvements in teacher salaries impossible,
or too burdensome for districts and their taxpayers." The subcommittee
recognized that school health care costs were part of a broader Wisconsin
problem of high insurance costs
The report said decisions about changes to health care benefits "should
respect the fact that health care benefits have been established through
the collective bargaining process, often at the expense of higher salaries."
The subcommittee also found that retaining teachers is a bigger concern
than recruiting teachers.
Members recommended a variety of proposals to increase recruitment
and retention, including $1,500 income tax credits for teachers who
work in high-poverty or low-enrollment school districts; funding programs
such as mentor programs that assist initial educators; and a grant for
master educators in low-income districts to serve as resources for students,
staff and the community.
The Academic Achievement Subcommittee focused on barriers to student
achievement in and outside of school. According to the report, "student
achievement is affected by many factors in a child's life, including
what happens in the earliest stages of life before a child enters school,
the child's school environment, the child's health, the child's home
environment, and the child's community. As a consequence, barriers a
child encounters in any of these environments can become an impediment
to academic achievement."
The committee identified the most significant barriers to academic
achievement as a child's economic situation and limited English language
skills.
"The subcommittee also strongly believes that the school climate,
as influenced by racial, ethnic, and cultural biases among students
and staff within schools can produce serious impediments to student
achievement," according to the report. "Steps must be taken
to address these barriers in order to ensure that each student in Wisconsin
has an equal opportunity to a sound, basic education."
The subcommittee is recommending the state:
·
The Special Education Subcommittee looked for ways to adequately fund
special education, including ways to share costs more evenly across
the state. According to the report, subcommittee members were concerned
about the current level of special education funding, but decided against
making a specific recommendation on funding at this time. Members agreed
that special education funding changes should be made in the context
of reforming the entire school funding system.
It is recommending the state:
The Early Education Subcommittee recommended the state:
Although not directly discussed in the subcommittees' various reporters, Meredith said numerous members expressed concerns about the potential negative impact on quality instruction of the federally imposed Elementary and Secondary Education Act, called the "No Child Left Behind" act by the Bush Administration.
All four reports are available online at the official Web site of the Governor's Task Force on Educational Excellence.
Posted April 1, 2004