Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty announced this week that three schools in the Land of 10,000 Lakes will pilot a new teacher pay-for-performance plan that he hopes will pave the way toward more ambitious merit pay schemes down the road. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the plan includes: $5,000 for teachers who serve as mentors; $8,000 in raises for master teachers, who assist with teacher training, evaluation and student achievement analysis; and $2,500 to $3,000 in bonuses awarded to teachers based on evaluations of their teaching and how much they boost student achievement. Pawlenty, whose more ambitious proposal to pay "super teachers" up to $100,000 a year (read more here) died in the state's 2004 legislative gridlock, is optimistic about this first step. "My view is that we want to change the whole system. But you can't do that overnight. . . . We want to move more toward a performance-pay plan, and this is a step in the right direction."
"State will test teacher merit pay," by Norm Draper, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, September 14, 2004