Metro Schools Won’t Be Paying Teachers For Performance Any Time Soon

MNPS director Jesse Register sent an email to teachers Thursday morning to explain that performance pay plans would be differed. Credit: Belmont University

Nashville’s public schools are backing away from a proposal to pay teachers for how they perform in new evaluations and how well their students do on standardized tests. Performance pay is being put off, according to an email sent to teachers:

At this time, we have decided to defer the decision on tying teacher pay to TEAM evaluations. We still will move forward with changing the way we base pay on advanced degrees and how  we recognize and reward teacher leadership, but we will not recommend basing raises on TEAM composite scores at this time.

There’s just too much change going on in the classroom right now, says district spokesman Joe Bass. He cites new standardized tests associated with Common Core standards that would be used to determine who gets a bonus.

“We’ve worked really hard that we can do it with fidelity and evaluate fairly. Based on teacher feedback, we all want a little more work with it, a little more time with it.”

Bass says Metro Schools still believes in what he calls “strategic compensation” and that it may happen, just not this year.

A task force on teacher pay is recommending some changes though. One would give additional stipends to teachers who complete graduate work in high-demand subjects.