INDIANAPOLIS | Indiana's Education Roundtable endorsed changes to teacher evaluation and compensation systems Wednesday, giving Gov. Mitch Daniels and state Superintendent Tony Bennett momentum for sweeping educational reform in the upcoming legislative session.
The Roundtable's two dozen education, political, business and community leaders approved a resolution saying teachers should be graded and paid based on "measures of content knowledge, instructional skill, classroom management, student academic achievement and leadership effectiveness."
"Let's walk away from an antiquated system that requires school leadership to make decisions based solely on seniority," Bennett said.
Bennett said he plans to ask state legislators to get rid of the law that bases teacher pay on their degrees and years of service, to limit collective bargaining to salaries and benefits but not working conditions and to give the state more authority to take over schools not meeting new annual performance goals.
"This is an opportunity for us today to begin the quest to really change Indiana's education landscape, to do some things that frankly many states are lining up across the country to think about doing, and have the courage to lead the nation," Bennett said.
Patrick O'Rourke, president of the Hammond Federation of Teachers, said it is long past time Indiana consider performance-based compensation and the other proposed reforms. But making these changes are "horribly complicated," O'Rourke said, and it's necessary that teachers be part of the decision-making process.
"I would hope that as these ideas are put into terminology and words and legislation that there be adequate time for representatives from around the state to testify and deepen the conversation," O'Rourke said. "To talk about all these things in one omnibus education bill might diminish the richness of the conversation that could occur."
The leaders of the House and Senate education committees, state Rep. Robert Behning, R-Indianapolis, and state Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, said they plan to break the education agenda of the Republican governor and superintendent into several pieces that will be considered separately.
State Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, a former Gary school teacher, urged the committee leaders not to exclude Democrats from the process just because Republicans control the Indiana House and Senate.
"I've always looked at education, not as a bipartisan issue, but as a nonpartisan issue," Rogers said.