What is the salary of a Visual Arts teacher?

Can performance-based pay cause a teacher's salary to decrease?

• I am a newly hired teacher in the state of Florida and all we hear about is the highly experimental "performance based pay" which means a teacher's salary will be based off of their performance for the year (a combination of evaluation scores and student's performance on the FCAT, a state assessment test). Regardless of whether you feel this is right or wrong, I am just curious if this means a teacher's pay can be DECREASED if their students don't perform well, or does it just mean you won't receive a raise? I can't seem to get this answer out of anyone and it almost seems like nobody knows what this new plan entails. If anyone has any insight on this system, I'd appreciate it. While I'm not too worried about me being an effective teacher, I am a little worried about a system where my salary can potentially increase one year, then decrease the next. To me, it would make most sense that good teachers are rewarded while others who don't meet a standard simply don't get more pay, but also aren't penalized for it either. Thanks in advance! -Eric

• Answer:

  There are no models. Every plan is created by districts and tried out. New York and California scrapped their plans. Your state - had something that was tried in Miami-dade; it was simply a bonus to certain teachers checks. See here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/30/2432013/miami-dade-schools-debut-merit.html your governor just signed a system that would go into effect in 2-3 years. This means that each district must come up with a plan to implement. Since there are no effective models - it entirely depends on what your school board decides. They will also have to negotiate with your unions for implementation. Id say a bigger worry is that you will have no tenure and can be fired at will. To those of us that have taught for years - the scary part is that there are administrators who dont care about educating kids. Ive seen teachers let go because they disagreed with a vote or had tattoos.