Student scores on standardized tests may affect teachers’ salaries in the near future.

The Teaching Commission recently issued a report urging a nationwide policy of linking student test scores to teachers’ pay in order to keep educators accountable for their students’ progress.

The 19-member Teaching Commission is an independent nonprofit group based out of Washington, D.C., whose high-profile members include Barbara Bush. The commission proposed a raise in base salary to attract more people to the teaching profession, as well as raising certification requirements.

Local school officials show concern for the proposal.

DeKalb High School Principal Larry Stinson said he opposes the pay linkage for ethical reasons.

“Each class has its own traits, which makes it difficult to compare them,” he said. “I would rather see a comparison of growth of one particular class throughout all four years of high school.”

Students score better on certain kinds of tests than others, depending on the format, Stinson said.

The commission has not issued a specific formula of exactly how much student test scores are worth for the teacher in monetary terms.

Any national scale needs to be fair and structured for all schools, said Kathryn Kapchinske, principal of Huntley Middle School in DeKalb.

Stinson said he thinks the federal government will have to give more money to schools for districts to dole out any pay raises that might occur.

District 428 receives its funding from property taxes, and any base salary raise for teachers mandated by the federal government should be funded by it as well, Stinson said.

The American Federation of Teachers ranked Illinois ninth in the nation for teacher salaries in 2001-’02. Full-time public school teachers made an average of $49,679 that year, up 3.8 percent from the previous year, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

The commission addressed the shortage of qualified teachers by suggesting the raise in base salary and stricter certification requirements.

Teacher certification in Illinois requires students to pass a Basic Skills Test. As of the 2004-’05 academic year, they also must pass a Content Area Test before beginning student teaching, according to the NIU College of Education. The ISBE Web site states these required tests have been mandated by the Illinois legislature and are supposed to ensure that future teachers are competent to teach their subject.

Kapchinske said she has no problem with additional competency requirements but added it is only one of many factors that make a quality teacher.

DeKalb County has not yet implemented a pay scale change for teachers based on student test scores.