Photo: WFIU/WTIU, Ben Skirvin
The bill would also add an incentive program for successful administrators.
A bill moving through the statehouse would eliminate the requirement that school administrators be licensed.
Under a bill that passed through the House Thursday school districts with at least 8,000 students, could decide to hire administrators not licensed as a superintendent or a teacher. The bill’s sponsor, Valparaiso representative Ed Soliday also put a pay to performance requirement in the legislation:
“School districts,” he says, “must put in a 5% or more pay to performance incentive for school administrators, principals, assistant superintendents, superintendents and the folks who handle the money.”
Gary representative Vernon Smith spoke in opposition to the bill. He says non-educators don’t have the knowledge base to be able to manage school districts and schools. He also says studies show pay to performance programs simply don’t work:
“Pay for performance plans are costly to taxpayers,” he says. “You’re paying out the money but you don’t get any notable increases in the performance of students.”
The bill passed by a 53 to 36 vote.
