Bills address teachers' pay, how to punish cheaters

By Kristina Torres

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

House and Senate lawmakers have filed bills in support of two of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s major education initiatives this year. One would tie teachers’ pay to students’ performance. The other would make it a crime to cheat on state tests.

Perdue proposed the performance-based pay option last month in anticipation of a major federal grant. Georgia's long-held teacher compensation system currently rewards educators without weighing test scores. They earn more with seniority and qualify for additional pay depending on whether they acquire advanced degrees. It's a model used nationally, although the Obama administration has openly encouraged states to consider alternatives, and Georgia is pursuing the performance-based option as part of its application for the administration's new $4 billion Race to the Top education fund.

State Sen. Don Balfour (R-Snellville), chairman of the powerful Rules Committee, is sponsoring the bill, SB 386. However, it faces considerable scrutiny by education advocates about how it would be implemented and how much it would cost, given the state's economic slump.

For test cheaters, state Rep. Matt Ramsey (R-Peachtree City), a House floor leader, filed two bills, HB 1121 and HB 1111. Taken together, the bills would make it unlawful to knowingly tamper with state tests or help students or other educators cheat on them. Violators would be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to the loss of their pensions. Cheaters could also be fined. They would continue to face sanction by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, a state agency that polices teaching credentials.

No law in Georgia currently makes it a crime to cheat on state academic tests, a circumstance that came to a head last year when state officials found tampering on state tests taken in summer 2008 at four Georgia elementary schools. The state investigation came after an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of improbable gains at some schools on tests taken first in spring and then in summer. State officials later threw out those schools' scores. The scandal also led to sanctions against 13 educators, who officials banned from public schools for between 90 days and two years for their actions.