Alyson Klein reports on the Senate markup of the economic-stimulus bill here. Like the House version, the bill would add $100 million for Teacher Quality Enhancement grants, which go mainly to partnerships between districts and teacher colleges.
But the bill does not put a dime toward the Teacher Incentive Fund, the federal performance-pay program, whereas the House put forward a preliminary $200 million figure. The House’s bill hits the floor tomorrow.
It looks as though Teacher Beat may have been wrong when we predicted that the Democrats are going to carry the torch forward on performance pay. Instead, expect a kerfuffle when appointed members meet to resolve differences between the House and the Senate version, and a lot of hard lobbying in the meantime from both proponents and detractors of performance pay.
UPDATE: Mike Petrilli at Flypaper notices this too, alongside some other things that are missing from the Senate bill. He sees this as evidence that the Democratic “split” on education is back with a vengeance. Guess those inaugural cocktails wore off...