Performance-based pay, state innovation fund among Corbett’s vision for education

CEDAR RAPIDS - Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, who is considering a run for Iowa governor, said during a speech Monday he wants performance-based pay for public school teachers, a statewide fund for innovative educational programs and a leadership academy for principals.

While Corbett criticized the Legislature's recent gutting of the state's collective bargaining law, he said it has provided Iowa with 'an opportunity to advance education.”

'I understand why the bill was passed - the Legislature wanted to shake things up a little bit, wanted to be a disrupter in the K-12 system,” Corbett said. 'That probably needs to be done, but if you're going to be a disrupter, on the other end of the disruption you better start laying out a vision for where you want to go after the disruption.”

In the speech to the Rotary Club of Cedar Rapids at the DoubleTree, 350 First Ave. NE - the first of dozens in a tour of Iowa Rotary clubs - Corbett outlined his own vision for public education in Iowa.

Corbett, 56, has said he is considering a gubernatorial bid in 2018. He would likely face Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds in a Republican primary.

Corbett has said he will not run for a third mayoral term in Cedar Rapids. He founded the conservative think tank Engage Iowa about a year ago, and he will soon begin a book tour for his recently published memoir, 'Beyond Promises.”

In light of changes to Iowa's collective bargaining law, Corbett said he thinks the state's teacher pay model needs to be reformed to prevent Iowa from dropping in national education and teacher pay rankings.

'Pay-for-performance has historically always been opposed by teachers,” he said. 'They never want to do it. They think it's always subjective - what are we going to be judged on? They always resist it. They can't anymore. By resisting we'll take the slide to the bottom, so they have to participate now.”

Each school district would develop its own pay model, so performance measurements could vary, he said, adding he could only speculate on what the metrics would be.

Tammy Wawro, president of the Iowa State Education Association and a Cedar Rapids teacher, said the Cedar Rapids Community School District developed a pay-for-performance model in 2010 as part of a state pilot program.

She supported that model, she said, because metrics focused on teacher performance rather than student performance. Teachers were to be judged on additional responsibilities they took on in their school, such as coordinating curriculum or having a student teacher, rather than their students' test scores.

A pay model that relied on student performance 'would be devastating to our state,” Wawro said.

The initiative ultimately wasn't funded by the state.

Corbett acknowledged performance-based pay increases would not fit in many school districts' budgets with current state funding levels. To equalize districts' abilities, Corbett said he would advocate for a supplemental state fund to pay for performance-based pay.

He's also for a state fund that would finance innovative education programs, such as the Iowa BIG program in Cedar Rapids. In that high school program, which is sponsored by The Gazette's holding company, students work on community projects for class credit.

'That innovation didn't come without the support of the private sector and the donation of time and resources from the business community,” Corbett said. ' ... But what about all the school districts that don't have a big business base? What about the school districts that the only business they maybe have is the grain elevator?”

A state innovation fund could tap into private funding sources and spread them across the state, he said.

Corbett also pitched a leadership academy for school principals.

'Gone are the days when you work with the same teacher year after year - in Janesville, Wisconsin, they had 12 percent turnover” after legislators changed the state's collective bargaining law, Corbett said. 'Parents aren't used to that. ... Are principals ready for that? Are they ready to evaluate teachers on this new pay-for-performance? I don't know that they are.”

In an interview, Corbett acknowledged his ideas for education would require additional funding from the state - which has allocated near or below a 2 percent increase in state aid in seven of the last eight years.

'The state's going to have to prioritize it and put together the resources for the pay-for-performance funds, for the principal leadership academy and for innovation,” he said.

'It's a gut-check moment.”