Video Transcript:

GLORIA PENNER (Host): Educators are struggling to find ways to do more teaching with less money as students throughout the county head back to the classroom. One potential pot of money is the four billion dollar 'Race to the Top' stimulus fund from the federal government. But San Diego Unified, which took an eighty million dollar cut from the state, may not get much of that pot because of disagreement on the school board about tying student test scores to teacher performance. KPBS education reporter Ana Tintocalis is here to tell us about this issue. Thanks for being with me, Ana.

ANA TINTOCALIS (KPBS News): Thank you.

PENNER: So lets talk about that potential pot of money. How do schools qualify for the 'Race to the Top' stimulus money?

TINTOCALIS: So you're right, there's several pots of federal stimulus dollars for schools. This one pot is more than four billion dollars, and so what school districts have to do is compete for the money in that pot. So they compete for the money by coming forward with really innovative reforms. One of the guidelines, however, is that they have to tie the reform to student test scores, which also have to be linked to teacher performance. So that's the controversial issue.

PENNER: So, California might not even qualify for it then because of this tying test scores to teacher performance. Doesn't California say, you know, we don't do that?

TINTOCALIS: Thats right. There is a law that was actually drafted by the teacher's union - or helped to create this law - and it says that in California you can't do that. You can't tie student test scores to teacher performance on a state level, and that's the key word, on a state level. It doesn't single out that individual school districts can't create their own systems, and that's what state education officials are trying to point out to the Obama administration who is saying, change your law or else you won't get any money. They're saying there is flexibility there, you just can't do it on a state level, so there's a lot of semantics involved.

PENNER: Alright. So let me see if I understand. So, the better the scores, the better perks a teacher might get because its teacher performance. Are we talking about increased salary, are we talking about more job security, are we talking about, maybe, not worrying about being laid off? Is that all this stuff?

TINTOCALIS: I think that when you talk about tying student test scores to teacher performance, education officials will say that just provides more transparency as to a teacher's effectiveness in a classroom. It kind of raises this firewall between what a student is doing and what a teacher is doing. But it opens the floodgates to reforms that performance pay for teachers, called merit pay, paying teachers more to stay in a challenging school or to attract teachers to a challenging school. Thats one way to use this strategy. The other reform might be data driven teacher evaluations. And teachers are evaluated in a general sense, but they're not specifically pinpointing student test scores to whether a teacher is doing a good job. Thats kind of a new thing. Other states do that, in California thats not done.

PENNER: Alright, but the link to salary? Is there a link?

TINTOCALIS: And a link to salary of course is performance pay, merit pay. If a teacher is doing well, takes a struggling class and test scores are up, then that teacher will probably get a bonus of some sort - some type of workplace benefit that keeps them at that particular school.

PENNER: And as you said, the unions are opposed to that. But what about the superintendent to the San Diego Unified School District? How does he feel about it?

TINTOCALIS: Well, yes. So a lot of people are saying well, you know, the California law, its confusing, but it does leave room for school districts to consider whether they should tie these two pieces of the puzzle together. And so in San Diego Unified, the school board leans toward teacher union issues - are favorable to teacher union issues. So the school board, there's not a lot of political will there, however, the superintendent of the district sees it in a better light. He's used this type of strategy when he was a superintendent in North Carolina, and he says, you know, when implemented correctly you will see teachers stay and you will see test scores rise.

PENNER: You talked about Superintendent Terry Grier. Alright, now how much money is actually on the table? I mean, if this does go through and San Diego Unified does quality?

TINTOCALIS: So I can't give you a specific number. Probably millions of dollars that there's no specific dollar amount attached to it, because it really depends on the type of reform you put forward to the Obama administration; how wide scale it is, what kind of reform is it. So the price tag is aligned with the type of reform you will put forward. And since San Diego as such hasn't put forward a reform its hard to say how much money they would get, but they could potentially stand to get millions of dollars with a type of reform like this.

PENNER: I'd like for us to kind of look at this more globally. Where does California generally stand in the rankings of schools throughout the country in public schools.

TINTOCALIS: They're at the bottom, unfortunately.

PENNER: At the bottom?

TINTOCALIS: Not at the very bottom, but definitely there's tons of room for improvement. And a lot of folks will say since No Child Left Behind, and other accountability systems -  all boats are rising, you do see incremental, systematic improvement, but its still toward the bottom of the test scores.

PENNER: That was the Bush program. And apparently that had some success?

TINTOCALIS: Some success. I mean, not to the extent I think most people wanted, but there has been incremental progress. And California is such a big state, thats what, you know, education officials will say. We're not doing as well, as say, Maryland or something like that because we're so big , there's so many students. And the demographics, you have a lot of students who don't speak English as their first language, you have a lot of poverty, you have a lot of issues that you just can't control in a public school setting.

PENNER: Right. And apparently President Obama has recognized this and criticized California.

TINTOCALIS: The law. Yeah, that says on a state level you shouldn't tie student test scores to teacher performance. And he's come out publicly against California, saying you better change this law to encourage more of your school districts to compete for these special funds because, in a sense, you're denying these school districts a lot of money at a time when they need it the most.

PENNER: Thank you very much, Ana Tintocalis.

TINTOCALIS: You're welcome.