State law spells out the minimum a teacher should get paid and then creates a salary schedule throughout that teacher鈥檚 career. A bill passed by the House Education committee gets rid of that specific schedule, and instead requires local school districts to come up with their own systems.
Republican State Rep. Gerald Stebelton of Lancaster is the chair.
鈥淎ny salary schedule that a local district has, if they want to keep it, they can keep it," Stebelton said. "If they want to negotiate with their unions for a salary schedule, they can do that. We鈥檙e not changing any contracts as they were written today.鈥�
Stebelton said it鈥檚 time to revamp Ohio鈥檚 schools and allow for systems that reward good teachers.
"We need to face the reality that there are teachers that are less qualified than other teachers," he said. "They鈥檙e not as well-trained, they鈥檙e not as good in teaching. And having the same salary schedule for a second grade teacher who is not a good teacher and the one who is an excellent teacher is not fair to the one who is an excellent teacher.
Scott DiMauro with the Ohio Education Association, the state鈥檚 largest teachers union, disagreed.
鈥淥hio needs to focus on ways to pay committed educators more, not make it easier to pay them less," he said.
DiMauro said teachers must be able to depend on each other and work together, a relationship that he said doesn鈥檛 grow if teachers are pitted against each other for raises.
鈥淲hen you introduce merit-based systems into the equation, what you鈥檙e doing is you鈥檙e creating incentives for competition rather than cooperation between teachers," he said. "And that doesn鈥檛 really seem to help students.鈥�
But supporters of the bill, including Republican State Rep. Andrew Brenner of Powell, believe that getting rid of the current pay standards will mean good things for teachers.
鈥淚 think that it鈥檚 an artificial price control," Brenner said. "I think actually it is keeping wages and salaries stagnant without allowing the flexibility to pay good teachers more money and to work to try and eliminate bad teachers.鈥�
Opponents of the bill sparred with Republican backers during the committee hearing.
State Rep. John Becker of Cincinnati said he spent about 30 years in the private sector. After Phil Hayes of the Columbus Education Association delivered testimony against the provision, Becker asked this question:
鈥淲hat makes teachers unique as professionals that they can鈥檛 have or live on merit pay the way the rest of us do?鈥�
Hayes said there are many variables in play while judging a teacher鈥檚 performance. He used the example of a student who was dumped right before taking a test.
鈥淚 expected 鈥榓ccelerated鈥� or 鈥榓dvanced,鈥� and she got a 399 because her boyfriend came up to her five minutes before my class started, before that test started, and broke up with her," Hayes said. "So do you think I should be graded for that? That I should be paid for that?鈥�
Hayes also expressed frustration at the timing of the provision. The change was thrown into an existing House bill last week after it already received six hearings.
It passed out of committee along party lines. The bill is expected to go before the entire House for a floor vote this week.