Branstad says changes in works for teachers

DES MOINES - Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday he will push to create new roles for classroom teachers in his 2013 education reform package.

Saying teacher leadership “will be at the heart” of next year's initiative, Branstad announced the Iowa Teacher and Principal Leadership Symposium set for Aug. 3 at Drake University in Des Moines.

The announcement harkened back to a proposal that never made it into the governor's 2012 plan that would separate teachers into four categories - apprentice, career, mentor and master - with each successive tier taking on more responsibility and earning more pay.

When that proposal was pulled, the education department set up a task force to study teacher compensation and roles. The task force is expected to make recommendations based on its work this fall.

“Principals alone cannot provide all the leadership inside our schools to continually improve education and raise achievement for our students,” Branstad said. “They simply don't have enough time in the day to do everything themselves.”

Mary Jane Cobb, executive director of the Iowa State Education Association and a member of the compensation task force, said she hopes the symposium goes beyond the four-tiered system proposed last year.

“I hope it's much broader than that because we do, right now, have many different systems we can look at,” Cobb said.

A symposium website unveiled Monday morning - https://educationleadership.iowa.gov/ - lists 33 presenters for the event, including Jason Culberston of the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, ISEA President-elect Tammy Wawro of Cedar Rapids and a group from the Toledo school district. That district is known for pioneering a peer review process for teachers in the early 1980s that included pay increases for teachers who took on the role of peer reviewers.

“This is about honoring the teaching profession,” said Department of Education Director Jason Glass, who joined Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds at Monday's news conference.

“It's about creating leadership roles and sharing leadership and responsibility with the teaching profession,” he said. “It's difficult to extract the compensation part and try to have it separate, so we need to discuss both of those aspects together.”

Cobb, whose union is a symposium sponsor, said it only makes sense that teachers who do more receive more in pay. But Branstad and Glass said monetary compensation isn't the only type of compensation that could be available to teachers.

“This is going to be a full-court press,” Branstad said. “Remember what I said at the time of the inauguration? If we're going to make education a priority, our goal is to restore Iowa to best in America and world-class competitiveness. We think we need to continue to move forward.”