Secretary's Column
By Dr. Rick Melmer
Department of Education

Anatomy of HB 1124

The 2008 session is nearly over. This article is being written prior to Veto Day so the book has not been completely closed. The 2008 session will be remembered for many things but certainly a popular and at times controversial topic was that of teacher pay. House Bill 1124 was introduced by the House Leadership and the bill was developed to address issues surrounding the concept of teacher compensation. HB 1124 was not an agency bill but the DOE did assist in the construction of the bill and supported the bill during committee testimony. Even though the bill was eventually lost, the components of the bill were encapsulated in SB 187 under the title of the TCAP Advisory Council.

In this article, I will attempt to review a few of the key components of the bill that were of interest to educators around the state. The purpose of this “autopsy” is to shed some light on our interest in the concept and my prediction that a number of these issues may resurface in the future.

• Minimum Teacher Salary – The DOE recognized that this component was a direct hit on local teacher contracts. Setting minimum teacher salaries is a good symbolic step for a state to take and send the message that the teaching profession should be compensated at a competitive beginning rate. Frankly, when you see a SD district paying its first year teachers a salary of $20,500, you have to believe that something should be done. Yet this is clearly a local decision and the legislature eventually recognized this as well.

• Required administrator evaluations – Even though the DOE would acknowledge that this is already happening in virtually every district in the state, setting a law to require it is an important step. Ideally, dollars should be allocated to train practicing administrators in a refresher course/workshop in the evaluation of teachers. This law should be passed in our state to send the message that we expect all administrators to be actively supervising teachers in the classrooms.

• Elimination of teacher tenure/continuing contract – This was probably the most controversial of the components of HB 1124. We clamor that teaching should be treated as other professions, yet many continue to lobby for “protection” of our teachers. Honestly, most of the teachers in our state are of high quality and they need no protection. The educators that are clamoring for tenure should trust that strong performance will ensure continued employment. Administrators have no continuing contract status unless the district grants it. The DOE felt that language supporting “earned tenure” gave more control to the local districts regarding the contract status of existing teachers.

• Tiered licensure system – The development of a teacher licensure program has historically been the responsibility of the State Department. I was a bit surprised at the outcry when a tiered licensure system was proposed. We will continue to look into a system that provides initial licensure to new teachers and then gives local districts a chance to weigh in on permanent licensure for a teacher. Whether this type of system is compensated or not would remain a function of the legislature.

I recognize that the pace at which HB 1124 was introduced and discussed caused some alarm among education groups in our state. As a result, cries of mistrust and abuse were heard in Pierre. As one that is closer to the process than he sometimes cares to be, I can attest that there are many bills that are introduced but eventually fail because the ideas are bad or too controversial. Some would say that HB 1124 had a bit of both. I would say that there are ideas contained in the bill that are educational topics of the future. Rather than ignoring them with the hope that they will disappear, I hope we can have discussions about the merits of the ideas as they relate to improving our schools for the future.