Appointees working on school funding recommendations for Gov. Nathan Deal's Education Reform Commission have given preliminary approval to a fundamentally new way of reimbursing school districts for teacher pay.
The new funding formula would encourage districts to abandon the teacher pay scale in place for decades. Officials say existing teachers would be grandfathered under the existing state pay scale and that only new teachers would be affected. But they acknowledge that nearly all local school districts would not have to honor that commitment.
That’s because all but two of Georgia’s 180 districts have become, or have applied to become, “flexibility” systems. Charter systems and Strategic Waivers systems can ignore the state requirement to pay all teachers, including current teachers, on the pay scale.
So what are metro Atlanta districts’ plans regarding teacher pay and grandfathering existing teachers? None clearly committed to preserving the pay scale for current teachers. Here’s what Superintendent Stephen Green of the DeKalb County School District (which intends to become a charter system) and the press office for Decatur (which is a charter system) say:
Green, of DeKalb: “It is too early to know the Governor’s final recommendations and the course of action that the General Assembly will take. Whatever emerges, we hope the end result of this process will be teacher pay that recognizes the value and importance of quality teaching and the beneficial impact it has for our students, the most precious resource in our community.”
Decatur: “Until legislation is passed and details are presented, CSD will not be able to make a decision.”
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