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A full breakdown of the teacher performance grant can be found at by clicking here.
Some Indiana educators expecting a sizeable holiday bonus through the state’s second annual teacher performance grant might be disappointed when the one-time cash stipend hits their bank accounts in the coming weeks.
While corporations like Carmel Clay in Carmel will dish out an estimated $2,422 to each qualifying teacher, teachers at corporations like nearby Springs Valley are expected to get about $200.
“Making people — constituents, voters, whoever your target audience is — believe that teachers are teaching better and more effectively because they’re getting a one-time stipend that is based totally on test scores is a ludicrous way to do things,” said North Spencer Schools Superintendent Dan Scherry. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Teachers rated as effective in North Spencer schools will receive $1,331. Southeast Dubois schools ranked 19th in the state in money received and first in Dubois County at $1,707 per qualifying teacher. Effective Northeast Dubois teachers will get $1,054, and effective Greater Jasper teachers will receive $1,021. Southwest Dubois teachers received the lowest total amount, and will hand out an estimated $357 to each qualifying teacher.
The State of Indiana allotted $40 million total for the grant this year — $10 million more than last year — and that was divided among 283 qualifying corporations.
Only teachers who were employed at least 120 days in the 2015-16 school year, were ranked as effective or highly effective by their principals, and returned for employment this year were eligible for the extra money. Retired teachers did not receive any money from the grant.
The formula to determine how much each school received worked like this: If 72.5 percent to 90 percent of students passed ISTEP at a school, the school received $23.50 for each passing exam. If the school outperformed these numbers and more than 90 percent of students passed, the amount rose to $47 for each passing test.
Growth was also calculated into the formula, with an additional $47 for each student who showed at least 5 percent growth on the exam. High schools were also given money based on graduation rate and the growth of that number compared to the 2014-15 school year.
But if corporations don’t reach any of the determined benchmarks, their teachers won’t get a penny, even if they were rated as effective or highly effective. This is the case for 90 corporations across the state.
The state requires the corporations to distinguish between the two levels of teacher effectiveness, and all five local corporations do so by giving one extra dollar to those with a highly effective rating.
“We don’t want to drive a wedge between the teachers in the building or school corporation,” said Southeast Dubois Superintendent Rick Allen, echoing the sentiments of the other local corporation leaders. He said the extra competition is not what is needed in schools.
Allen explained that most of the schools that received the highest amount of money from the performance grant have trended toward the bottom of the list of money received from the state-funding model that favors schools with larger populations of students with families using public assistance programs like food stamps and Medicaid. For example, Carmel Clay receives the second-fewest dollars from the state based on its yearly funding formula, but the corporation received the most from the performance grants.
Allen said the high grant dollars now make up for it a little, but not completely. Scherry said the money should be re-purposed for longer-term goals.
“I think the better way to reward effective and highly effective teachers is to assure them that as they progress through their careers, they can make a good living and feel good about the career they have chosen,” Scherry said. “Right now, if a 23-year-old enters the classroom (as a teacher), there’s no assurance that even if he or she is highly effective his or her base salary is going to increase. Next year, you could theoretically make less money than you did this year.”
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