Coalition seeks mandate for performance pay

By Dennis Long

The Federal Government has laid the groundwork to say it has a mandate to insist on performance pay and local hiring and firing of teachers if it is re-elected.

Unlike the contentious WorkChoices legislation which was not raised during the 2004 election campaign, the Government has repeatedly flagged its plans for education in the run up to the 2007 election.

In an address to the National Press Club on February 7, Federal Education, Science and Training Minister Julie Bishop said: "Principals must be given greater autonomy over their schools. In particular, principals must have power over staffing."

Ms Bishop said she would work with the states "to move even further in the direction of principal autonomy and ensure they have the power to hire and fire teachers based on their performance".

On February 21, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Ms Bishop favoured a performance based pay scheme combining student-improvement and peer-assessment models in teachers' wage agreements.

"Ms Bishop will present three performance pay models for state education ministers to consider in April," the Herald reported.

"The first would assess teachers by the improvement of their students, as measured by annual statewide exam scores.

"A second model would rank teachers by the subjective assessment of peers, principals, parents and students.

"The third would reward a smaller number of teachers with larger bonuses paid out of a 'federal merit pay bonus fund'." (The bonus fund was subsequently rejected by the Treasurer Peter Costello.)

On March 22, The Age reported that Ms Bishop had again signalled that she would withhold $9 billion in federal funding to public schools unless the states introduced "performance-based" pay for teachers.

On Lateline on May 14, Ms Bishop mentioned the Prime Minister's call for school principals to be given the power to hire and fire.

On May 18, Prime Minister John Howard told Stateline: "Performance based pay for teachers is an idea whose time has come."

On June 12, Ms Bishop told the ABC's PM that she had engaged consultants to develop a "performance pay model, or models, or a framework of models".

In June, Ms Bishop announced that she would conduct a tender process to engage an expert to develop models of performance based pay for teachers to be trialled in Australian schools.

Dennis Long is the Editor.

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