Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that establishes the Idaho State Teacher Advancement and Recognition System (I-STARS), which awards public school employees with performance-based bonuses contingent upon their students' performance on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test (ISAT).

Highlights:

- Awards each certificated instructional and administrative employee in the schools ranked in the top quartile for overall growth and excellence with the base step, or standard I-STARS amount of $1200. Employees in the second highest quartile shall receive half of the base step. The state department of education measures this according to their students performance on the ISAT (Sec. 3). - Awards employees who currently hold a designated certificate or endorsement in a certain area with locally-controlled market scarcity pay, which can be up to two times the base step amount. The State Board of Education may award this to up to 10 percent of a school districts employees, and must be contingent upon the the relative difficulty of school districts to recruit and retain such personnel (Sec. 3). - Authorizes the school district boards of trustees to award up to 25 percent of their certificated instructional employees with leadership awards not to exceed the base step amount. To be eligible for the leadership award an employee must have three continuous years of experience in the district, and demonstrate teacher mentoring, experience as a peer teaching coach, or additional duties determined by the school districts board of trustees (Sec. 3). - Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to create a Teacher Performance Evaluation Task Force, composed of teachers, members of school district's boards of trustees, and principals or superintendents, to develop standards for evaluating teacher performance and present recommendations to various government officials (Sec. 4).

Full Bill Text