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October 28, 1999
For Immediate Release
TWELVE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS SELECTED
FOR PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE PILOT
Twelve elementary schools were identified Thursday for the district's trial run of the innovative pay-for-performance approach to determining teacher salaries.
The names of the schools were announced during a work session with Board of Education.
The schools are Centennial, Colfax, Columbian, Cory, Edison, Ellis, Fairview, Mitchell, Oakland, Smith, Southmoor, and Traylor Academy.
The announcement was made by the four-member Design Team, which includes two representatives from the Denver Classroom Teachers Association and two Denver Public Schools administrators. The DCTA representatives are Rebecca Wissink and Brad Jupp. The DPS administrators are Pat Sandos and Shirley Scott. The Design Team will oversee implementation of the two-year pilot of the pay for performance concept.
The agreement with the DCTA calls for inclusion of three middle schools during the first year of the pilot. But the agreement also required 85 percent of a school staff to support being involved in the pilot. Wissink told the Board that none of the middle school staffs met that threshold of support.
That may change, Wissink said, after the Design Team meets with those schools that indicated the need for further information.
"There were lots of questions being asked (in middle schools) but no answers for them," said Scott, until recently an assistant principal at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.
Visits with middle school staffs will begin, said Wissink, as soon as a more precise work plan can be spelled out.
In all, said Wissink, 82 elementary schools and 18 middle schools were asked to decide whether to be included in the pilot. All but six schools responded to that request; more than half of the 94 school staffs leaned in favor of being involved. However, only the 12 elementary schools met the 85 percent target.
It is "very encouraging," said Board member Laura Lefkowits, that schools discussed the idea and that teachers tended to like it. Several Board members lauded the Design Team's initial efforts.
The pilot was announced in late August as part of the new contract with the DCTA.
Teachers in each of the 12 schools will receive $500 for participating, and an additional $1,000 for completing two performance objectives.
The 12 elementary schools are being divided into three groups of four schools each. Each of the three groups will pilot a different approach to pay for performance.
Approach 1: Teachers will collaborate with their principal and the Design Team to develop and test the use of teacher objectives that measure academic achievement based on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. (Colfax, Oakland, Smith and Traylor Academy.)
Approach 2: Teachers will develop and test teacher objectives based on teacher-developed criterion referenced tests or other teacher-developed measures of academic achievement. (Centennial, Columbian, Edison, and Fairview.)
Approach 3: Teachers will develop and test measures based on increases in teacher knowledge and skill to improve student achievement and behavior. (Cory, Ellis, Mitchell, and Southmoor.)
Wissink told the Board that all but three of the 12 elementary schools
will pilot the approach they preferred.
Over the next few weeks, the Design Team will:
- Select an independent firm to serve as expert evaluators of the pilot.
- Begin working with the 12 elementary schools, providing training and information about the pilot phase.
- Continue to seek funding from private foundations to more fully develop the project.
- Begin to answer the many specific questions about how the pilot will be implemented.
"You're building a plane as it's going down the runway," said Wissink. "It's rolling and we're still putting the pieces together."
Ultimately, in the spring of 2001, the Design Team will present to the DCTA membership a proposed pay for performance plan that, if approved, would be used district-wide beginning with the 2001-2002 school year.
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