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More than a few eyebrows were raised when School Board member-elect Monica Ratliff appeared at a Thursday Educators for Excellence (E4E) event and seemed to signal support for some kind of a test-based pay system to attract and keep good teachers in LA classrooms.

See LA School Report (Ratliff Supports Proposal Linking Teacher Pay to Test Scores) and LA Times (Deasy and new board member Ratliff laud teacher report, Group urges teachers’ raises based on student achievement).

However, in an email published by school reform advocate Diane Ravitch, Ratliff clarified that her appearance at the event with Superintendent John Deasy did not mean that she is in favor of linking test scores to salary increases:

“Across LA, there are public schools where scores have been rising over the years sans any monetary gain for teachers or administrators. If we link test scores to monetary gain, I have no doubt that we will see some increases in test scores but at what cost and by what means?”

Teachers union UTLA has thus far not taken a position on the E4E recommendations, but some teacher activists such as Alex Caputo-Pearl have decried the group’s recommendations.

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