For Immediate Release Monday, March 08, 2010 Contact: Senator Ryan- 505-238-3733

Get Going on Merit- Based Pay to be Competitive for National Grant


“Get innovative, get merit based pay for teachers, get the millions in grant money.” Those are the words of advice from the State Senator who sponsored the Senate Memorial asking the New Mexico Department of Education (PED) to study ways, such as merit based pay, to reward educators who have outstanding results in the classroom. Now Senator John Ryan is saying, “Get going or continue to lose millions in grant money.”

According to news reports, New Mexico has recently been notified that it failed to be named a finalist for the Race to the Top grants from the U.S. Secretary of Education. There is expected to be a second round of applications and grants.

Senator Ryan said his Senate Memorial 38 requests that the PED work with educators and teachers’ unions in designing a merit pay program for teachers and principals who are successful and to present their system to the legislature next session.

Now, because the PED’s application for approximately $200 million in grant money from the federal government was not competitive enough to be a finalist for the funding, Senator Ryan said the PED needs to become innovative and seriously look at a merit based pay system in its educational reform efforts. Ryan says he believes the state lost out of the first round because it state does not have the innovative rewarding system necessary to be competitive for the grant.

“Having a system that rewards good teachers and is able to fire bad teachers is certainly important for our kids in the classroom and we are finding such an innovative system is critical to win millions in federal educational reform grant dollars to help improve our students’ education even more. It is a win, win situation. But it needs to be explored and included now in our educational reform plan,” Senator John Ryan said. Ryan said “The “Race to the Top” educational grant program through the Obama administration is weighing more favorably applicants who are adopting this innovative approach of rewarding teachers. If the state fails to include merit based pay again in its second round of applications the state might not be competitive again and could fail in securing this grant, and thereby shortchanging our students.”

Senator Ryan said the state has applied for the $200 million dollar grant to pay for educational reform and innovation in the classroom from the federal government through the “Race to the Top” grant program. Congress has dedicated $100 billion to better schools, with strings attached. The program, implemented by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan rewards innovation and accomplishment.

Senator Ryan said the PED needs to think of what opportunities New Mexico students can gain with this type of educational reform and what it could do with the millions it could earn for the state of New Mexico’s educational reform efforts and not be so concerned about the reaction from teachers’ unions if teacher pay is based on their job performance in the classroom.

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