$42 bonus was an 'insult.' So these Indy teachers made the best of it.
Some of Wayne Township's best teachers have decided not to accept their $42 bonuses from the state, saying the paltry check discourages teaching in disadvantaged districts and shows lawmakers don't value teachers in urban districts as much as those in wealthier ones.
Compared to the $2,422 bonus that Carmel's best teachers will receive, the $42 bonus felt like an insult to the work that they do, Wayne Township the teachers said, and an insult to the more impoverished community they serve.
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Instead, more than 40 teachers will donate their bonuses to the Wayne Township Education Foundation, — "an organization," they said, "that still believes and invests in our students, teachers, and community."
"It is not encouraging to know our legislators feel that our work is worth such a small amount of money," the teachers wrote in a statement posted online and circulated on social media Wednesday. "We serve in a community greatly affected by poverty and hardship, and we show up every day, and we serve every student that walks through our doors. An effective teacher in our school is worth just as much as an effective teacher in any other. And one test over only a few subjects, which the State of Indiana and the Department of Education continues to mismanage year after year, should not determine the effectiveness and worth of all of our teachers."
Even with 46 teachers donating their bonuses, the sum of the donation is less than the bonus of a single Carmel teacher.
The teachers calculated that their year of hard work was worth 1.7 percent of the bonus for Carmel teachers.
The difference in bonuses, said 8th eighth-grade English teacher Jason Brumback, amounts to taking his family out to dinner at Five Guys instead of taking a trip to Disney World. And the actual take-home amount would have been less than $42 after tax.
"It isn't a way to incentivize teachers, and it isn't a way to reward their performance," said Brumback, who wrote the teachers' statement. "It isn't fair. And it doesn't encourage anyone to go work in a district that needs good teachers and has big issues with poverty."
In some districts, because of test scores, highly rated teachers received no bonus at all.
The teachers hope their statement calls legislators' attention to the disparity in bonus pay and problems with tying those funds to performance measures that don't show a complete picture of schools. They called for equal bonuses for highly rated teachers, no matter the school.
Brumback estimated that if bonuses were distributed equally to every effective teacher across the state, each would have received about $600.
But the largest shares of the $40 million in state-funded bonuses for high-performing teachers will go to educators in some of the state's wealthiest school districts, while those in urban districts will see much less. That's because the performance pay formula is based on a school's ISTEP student test scores and graduation rates, then distributed among teachers.
School leaders have decried the system as flawed and unfair, prompting lawmakers to say they will review the formula in the upcoming legislative session.
Lawmakers had reworked the formula to award student improvement, not just pass/fail scores on standardized tests, said key budget writer Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville. But with changes in ISTEP, including a year where lower scores couldn’t affect teacher pay and A-F grades, “what happened was the exact opposite of what we tried to do,” Kenley said.
“We are committed to getting that more equitable,” said Kenley said, a Noblesville Republican.
The state needs to review the way it defines teacher performance, Wayne Township Schools Superintendent Jeff Butts said. The number of students who pass a standardized test “doesn’t tell the whole story,” he said. Wayne Township sees a higher rate of students moving in and out of the district than suburban schools. And those students can arrive behind grade level, Butts said.
Teachers don’t control those factors, he said.
“I do think our teachers should get paid more money, and that discussion, of course, is being had in many different circles on teacher pay,” Butts said. “But I don’t see this incentive grant as being a way to distribute money to teachers that is going to have a significant impact.”
Call IndyStar reporter Stephanie Wang at (317) 444-6184. Follow her on Twitter: @stephaniewang.