School reform efforts proposed last year were
spurred by stagnant student test scores. Iowa children were among top
performers on national math and reading tests in the early 1990s. The state’s
students have since slipped to the middle of the pack.
This year’s proposals attempt to reverse that
trend by putting extra resources toward the recruitment of educators and by
creating new career options for teachers already on the job.
The governor will recommend raising base pay
for first-year teachers by $7,000, bringing the minimum salary from $28,000 to
$35,000 over three years.
An initiative dubbed Teach Iowa also seeks to
make the profession more attractive to young people. Under that proposal, 500
to 700 prospective teachers would be eligible for two years’ tuition
reimbursement. Only college students in the top quarter of their class would be
accepted into the program, and participants would commit to teach in Iowa for
five years.
Once in the profession, the proposed career
pathways would provide more peer support to new and struggling teachers, while
offering veteran educators the chance to lead school-based improvement efforts.
Tasks of mentor and master teachers could include peer coaching, data analysis
and curriculum development. The classrooms of model teachers would be used to
demonstrate new or proven teaching tactics.
“This means that no matter where a student
lives in Iowa, there’s an assurance of having a high-quality, well-supported
teacher (who has) an instructional team working with them,” Jason Glass said. “Right
now we have a lot of pockets of excellence; but most kids still have just one
teacher, and they just have to hope that teacher is a great teacher.”
