HISD Board of Education approves performance pay model for reading improvement

The Houston Independent School District Board of Education approved the performance pay model for the Secondary Reading Initiative at its meeting Thursday, Nov. 8.

The district chose 175 teachers to offer supplemental reading classes to students on each campus. The initiative provides up to $10,000 to reward teachers for the improvement of reading performance for students in reading intervention classes, according to a press release.

The SRI program was created to target students who read below the 50th percentile, as measured by the Stanford Achievement Test. The program is designed to improve literacy skills and to help all students read at or above grade level by the third grade.

"Research tells us that students who are not reading on grade level are at the highest risk of dropping out of school," said HISD Superintendent Terry Grier in the release. "This is why it is so important that we give our great teachers the resources they need to get all of our students back on a path to college readiness."

The Houston Independent School District is at 4400 W. 18th St., Houston.

For more information, call 713-556-8501 or visit www.houstonisd.org.

The Houston Independent School District is the largest school district in Texas and the seventh-largest in the United States with 279 schools and more than 200,000 students. The 301-square-mile district is one of the largest employers in the Houston metropolitan area with nearly 30,000 employees.