NC House Committee on Education Reform recommends changes to teacher pay, performance grades

The state House Select Committee on Education Reform approved a report on Monday addressing issues related to teacher compensation, school performance grades, and more. 

The committee has met six times since January to hear from education experts on a variety of topics like teacher pay, artificial intelligence in the classroom, and school performance grades. 

Members compiled a report summarizing their findings and recommendations to be shared with the General Assembly. 

Their first point is related to the recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers. Wake County Rep. Maria Cervania spoke about this at the Monday meeting. 

“I think we're all in agreement that we want to see teachers’ compensation be very much clarified because we're losing workforce so significantly," Cervania said. 

The report states that teacher pay has not kept up with the rising cost of living, or pay for other public sector employees. The Committee recommends that the General Assembly assess educator compensation and find ways to attract and retain teachers in hard-to-staff positions. 

The report also calls on legislators to modify the current A through F school performance grade model to include factors beyond student test scores. It specifically mentions post-secondary preparation, extracurricular activities, and chronic absenteeism. 

Randolph County Rep. Brian Biggs, who co-chairs the committee, spoke about why student absences should be included in the new model. 

“It's tough sometimes when you have a school system and children are not attending school, but your staff is being graded, you know, on their performance when they're not there and it's impossible to teach them," Biggs said. "So that does need to play into the factor a little bit.”

Other recommendations in the report include increasing student access to mental health professionals, identifying funding sources to refresh school technology, and investing in learning recovery interventions.

Amy Diaz covers education for WFDD in partnership with Report For America. You can follow her on Twitter at @amydiaze.