Georgia at Risk of Losing Some Education Grant Money
In a letter addressed to Gov. Deal this week, federal education officials said they may withhold about $10 million of Race to the Top grant money from Georgia. The state has yet to implement a merit pay system tied to teacher evaluations.
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Georgia has actually implemented the new teacher evaluation system ahead of schedule. But officials have yet to link the evaluations to pay. Under the new system, student achievement accounts for 50% of a classroom teacher’s evaluation. But State Superintendent John Barge says figuring out how to assess other teachers is more complicated.
“For the teachers of those non-tested subjects, it’s taking us more time to get more valid and reliable measures for those teachers, so that you can have a reliable measure by which you can then compensate with the merit pay piece,” Barge says.
State education officials would like another year to decide. Barge says the letter came in response to Georgia’s request to amend its original merit pay deadline from 2009.
“I just don’t want to be rushed to implement something that we know still has some issues and some hiccups in it just because of an artificial timeline that was set four years ago,” he says.
Federal education officials say to receive the money, Georgia needs to present a plan for implementing performance pay by the beginning of the school year. The deadline is somewhat vague, since some Georgia districts have already started school. However, Barge says his department will soon develop a proposal.
Georgia has won $400 million through Race to the Top.
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