Missouri ballot features teacher evaluation change
JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri voters are likely to hear a lot about good teachers and local control in the coming months, as a costly campaign unfolds over a ballot proposal that would link teachers’ salaries and jobs to the performance of their students.
The proposal, known as Constitutional Amendment 3, may be the most prominent item on the November ballot, which for the first time since 1990 lacks an election for one of the big three offices of president, U.S. Senate or governor.
The teacher-evaluation proposal is being bankrolled by prominent political activist Rex Sinquefield, an investment firm founder who has a history of spending millions of dollars on favored causes. It’s opposed by a public education coalition financed largely by teachers’ unions that are pledging a vigorous advertising effort.
The proposal would end tenure protections for newly hired teachers, who currently qualify for indefinite contracts after working for five years at a public school district. They instead could have contracts of no more than three years.
Starting next July, the measure also would require schools to adopt an evaluation system that relies largely on “quantifiable student performance data” to make decisions about paying and retaining staff.
“We've got to have good teachers and get rid of the bad ones,” Sinquefield says in a video posted on his website.
Teachers’ groups contend the measure fails to ensure students get the best possible instruction and could actually worsen their education by multiplying the number of standardized tests students must take.
With “more emphasis on the standardized testing, learning will change for students. They will end up becoming a number and test score as opposed to an individual who should be looked at and taught that way,” said Mike Wood, the government relations director for the Missouri State Teachers Association.
Education groups assert that the ballot measure will take away local control from schools, drive up costs and force a one-size-fits-all approach for student testing and staff evaluations.
They predict a tenfold increase in standardized tests, which currently are given only in core subjects in certain grades, but may have to be expanded to provide data for teacher evaluations.
