From KTIV channel 4 website
"On Tuesday, South Dakota governor Daugaard signed a bill into law that gives bonuses to top teachers and phases out tenure.
The bill includes the governor's original plan to give 5,000 annual bonuses to the top 20 percent of teachers, but school districts could create their own reward plans or opt out of the program altogether. The bill also gives math and science teachers yearly bonuses.
The bill makes it possible to remove teachers, even tenured ones, starting in 2016. Some are worried that will affect job security."
Personally I am a proponent of Merit (Bonus) Pay to top teachers. But I have not found a Merit Pay system that I can agree with. It is difficult to use the same criteria for all teaching areas. For example, it is possible to measure the effectiveness of elementary teachers by looking at the academic growth of their students during the school year. But you cannot use that same process for art or physical education teachers. And if academic growth is the criteria, then the issue becomes the method that students are assigned to classrooms. Obviously teachers would want to teach students that have a high potential for academic growth, increasing their chances for earning the Merit Pay. Those teachers that can achieve large academic growth gains in students that have been low achievers are the ones I would like to see rewarded first.
The tenure law in Nebraska is a good one. Teachers are given three years of probationary status in which their contract can be "non-renewed" if their performance is unsatisfactory. After three years teachers have the right to an opportunity to improve their performance before their employment can be terminated. This process is fair.
