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Reform School
As the world waits breathlessly to hear whether the Ontario government is really going to insist on zero pay increases for its teachers, it’s worth taking a look at what is going on in Colorado’s Harrison School District. If you click here, you can read a little bit about the district’s pay-for-performance plan and watch a short clip about how the superintendent thinks it important to align teacher compensation with quality instruction, professional development, student achievement, the evaluation process and so on. A detailed report on the Harrison plan can be downloaded, but the Reader’s Digest version is that teachers are paid for performance, and the grid has been abolished. It’s early days, but so far the students appear to be doing well: The district’s most recent average ACT scores were up one full point over the previous year, and one elementary school’s third grade scored 100% proficient on Colorado’s state reading test.