California Gives Bonuses to Educators for Results. (On First Reading).

More than 12,000 teachers in California were a little more excited about pay-day this fall as bonus checks from the state gradually made their way to those in schools that showed the greatest improvement in student performance.

Nineteen other states also provided rewards to schools this past year, according to Education Week. In 11 of those, all or some portion went for teacher salary bonuses.

What makes California different is the amount of the bonus--up to $25,000 for each full-time certified employee at schools making the biggest gains. The Legislature appropriated $100 million for staff in schools exceeding growth targets on the state's Academic Performance Index (API), which will eventually be based on a number of measures of achievement, such as student performance on state exit exams, English standards tests and attendance rates. The law says that at least 60 percent of the API must be based on test results. But in this first year, it is based on student performance on a single test, the Stanford-9.

Staff in 304 schools received bonuses of $25,000, $10,000 or $5,000 each. A similar program, the Governor's Performance Awards, also provides bonuses for schools exceeding growth expectations. Amounts awarded as bonuses of the $157 million allocated for the 2001-02 school year, will be awarded based on approval of local school boards.

The most outspoken critics of the bonus, ironically, are teachers themselves. At issue is the appropriateness of rewarding only some teachers. Teachers at bonus schools acknowledge the hard work of colleagues across the district who will not share in the rewards. Many also argue that the API is not a good measure of which schools are making progress.

Compounding the fairness charges has been the difficulty of delivering the promised bonuses to deserving teachers. A lawsuit by Sacramento teachers over how achievement would be measured held up the announcement of the winning schools and delivery of checks. The money has been sent by the state to local districts and teacher unions to decide how to distribute it. Many large districts negotiated to ensure that all teachers received the same amount. But Los Angeles Unified did not reach agreement with the union, so bonuses will be doled out based largely on seniority with newer teachers receiving about half the amount as veteran educators in the same school.

Despite these problems, the idea of rewarding or paying teachers based on performance continues to grow in popularity in California and across the country. Iowa created a statewide compensation plan in 2001 that will eventually place teachers in four performance categories and pay them accordingly.