Ohio

Eye on Education

Topics

dollars

The Essentials of Teacher Performance Pay in Ohio

View All Topics »

Background

Ohio policymakers including Gov. John Kasich and GOP lawmakers want to move the current system of basing teacher pay and layoffs on seniority to one under which they’re tied to classroom performance.

Senate Bill 5 would have replaced the current system of paying teachers based on their educational credentials and years of employment to one under which teachers’ pay would be tied to their performance and behavior. However, SB 5 was repealed by voters and never took effect.

The 2011 biennial budget, known as House Bill 153, also includes a performance pay provision. It requires school districts receiving federal Race to the Top funds that said they were going to include performance pay in their plans for using the funds to go ahead and do so. The Ohio Department of Education strongly encourages school districts that did not include performance pay in their plans for the federal funding to implement performance pay for teachers, but does not require them to do so.

Some Ohio school districts, including Cleveland, are already trying out pilot versions of performance pay systems.

Key Stories

July 13, 2011

Money

Six Lessons on Performance Pay from the Private Sector

Latest Posts

May 15, 2013

Cleveland School District Moves Towards Performance Pay

Last night the Cleveland school board unanimously agreed to what city and union officials are hailing as a groundbreaking teacher contract for Ohio. Union members will vote later this month. The contract spells out a new basis for teacher pay hikes. Raises merely for lasting another year in the job are out; so are automatic [...]

September 8, 2011

The Five Things Ohio Teachers Worry About

After holding 18 meetings with Ohio teachers and reviewing about 1,300 of emails, Ohio Teacher Liaison Sarah Dove presents in this draft document the five main areas of concern teachers have about coming changes to the ways teachers are evaluated and paid. Take look at the word cloud below. The big takeaway: “Teachers need…”

August 31, 2011

How Ohio’s Teacher Liaison Separates the Personal from the Professional

In what she calls her “personal role”, Ohio teacher liaison and former Kasich campaign worker Sarah Dove is a supporter of Senate Bill 5, the law that would limit collective bargaining and replace salary ladders with performance pay, among other things. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you probably [...]

August 30, 2011

Performance Pay for Teachers Was a Big Deal Twenty Years Ago

Education Week’s interactive timeline digs into the publication’s archives to show the sweep of education policy changes through the years, from the Reagan era on forward. One example, from May 1983: “A dramatic move by President Reagan to “seize the educational initiative” has made teacher pay central in a partisan political debate and has prompted [...]

Meet Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s Chosen Teacher

Sarah Dove

“I disagree with so much of what OEA says and does. I can’t imagine them taking even one more penny from my paycheck.” That’s a Facebook post from Ohio’s new teacher liaison, an elementary teacher from Gahanna named Sarah Dove who has been charged with reaching out to educators across the state to get their [...]

July 19, 2011

Teacher Performance Pay Happens at the College Level Too

With efforts to introduce performance pay for K-12 teachers into Ohio schools, we thought it would be worth taking a look at how another type of teacher–the college professor–is evaluated and paid. Teaching fourth grade math isn’t the same as teaching a freshman English class, much less doing academic research. But this overview of Ohio [...]

New York City Ends Performance Pay Program

As some Ohio schools move towards paying teachers based on their performance in the classroom, one big city district is ending its teacher performance bonus program. The New York City Department of Education will shut down the program that distributed $56 million in performance bonuses to teachers and other school staff members over the last [...]

July 11, 2011

Lessons on Performance Pay from the Private Sector

Performance pay may be a new concept for Ohio teachers, but not for many of the state’s private-sector workers. Those who have lived with merit pay for years says the keys to making it work include picking the right performance measures, ensuring employees trust the system and preparing managers to spend quality time doing evaluations. [...]

June 28, 2011

State Budget Agreement Reached

A conference committee of state lawmakers reached an agreement on Ohio’s two-year, $112 billion budget late Monday night, voting 4-2 on party lines to approve the budget. The Senate will likely vote on the compromise budget today, and the House on Wednesday. Gov. Kasich has said he plans to sign the budget Thursday, and the [...]

June 27, 2011

Cleveland Teacher Evaluation System Pilot Launches Soon

In response to Cleveland city and school officials’ announcement of their support for creating a state-wide teacher evaluation and merit pay system through the state budget, Cleveland Teachers Union President David Quolke noted that the teachers union and the school district are already at work developing a new teacher evaluation system. WCPN’s Michelle Kanu reports [...]

About StateImpact

StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives.
Learn More »

Education