Penni Cyr, president of the Idaho Education Association, says her group has major concerns about the new teacher “career ladder” legislation endorsed yesterday by the state Board of Education, which would phase in substantial raises for Idaho teachers if they meet standards for evaluations and student achievement.

“First of all, it’s a really flawed process,” she said, adding that she and another teacher from the IEA served on the governor’s education improvement task force, but neither was invited to work on the career ladder legislation. “People haven’t been involved in this process,” Cyr said. “I’m sorry that they brought forward again another piece, just like the Luna laws, that hasn’t been vetted with the public and hasn’t included all of us working on it to bring it forward.”

“I think, too, that we’re going to continue our mass exodus of teachers from Idaho,” Cyr said. “Basically what we’re going to get is an inexperienced pool of teachers who, once they reach a point, they’re going to leave Idaho to go to other places that don’t base their pay on how their students perform or on their local evaluations. And I think at the hearings the public said loud and clear, local evaluations should be to help teachers grow as a professional. Charlotte Danielson (author of the evaluation framework tied to the new career ladder) never intended her model to be used in this way.”