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SALT LAKE CITY -- A new bill would remove certain protections from poorly performing teachers in Utah, basically making it easier for them to be fired.
Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, says tenure means some teachers are in the classroom year after year, and the students suffer.
"It absolutely would make it easier to fire bad teachers. Right now it's extremely difficult. And so we are stuck with that small number of poor teachers, who our children get shuffled through their classrooms and have years in school with very little results," he said.
He's proposing a bill that would eliminate tenure for the lowest performing teachers, based on student growth.
"We have to break out of the lock-step salary schedule," Stephenson said.
He stresses this would not measure students year to year or look at year end test scores, it's measuring growth in that teacher's classroom.
"There would have to be low performance over time, with clear results, to show they are incapable of improving, incapable of helping students perform better."
He says teachers at low performing schools have better opportunity for improving. On the flip side, the bill would give merit pay to the higher-performing teachers.
E-mail: mrichards@ksl.com
