As a candidate, John Kasich pledged to make big changes for education. He promised to press for higher academic standards, more school choice and more efficient use of taxpayer money.

Candidate Kasich also promised that Gov. Kasich would hold teachers more accountable, and press to have their pay based on their performance.

"We pay good teachers more, but I'm going to suggest that we hold all teachers accountable. Teachers who can't teach shouldn't be in the classroom. ... If we've got teachers who can't do the job there's no excuse for leaving them in the classroom. But the good ones — we'll pay them more," Kasich told an audience at the City Club of Cleveland.

Legislation that reworked the state"s collective bargaining rules for public employees did just that. Known as Senate Bill 5, it included provisions for merit-based pay for teachers. Kasich signed the bill on March 31.

The new law requires Ohio's 146,000 primary and secondary school teachers be evaluated principally on how students score on standardized testing and also some other more-subjective criteria.

The evaluations would be done by April 1. In addition to test scores, the evaluations would consider a teacher"s licensure level, whether a teacher achieved "highly qualified” teaching status, the results of least two observations sessions by administrators and other criteria selected by local school boards.

The evaluation process would be used in decisions about what kind of pay teachers get and which teachers are laid off or fired.

The law won"t take affect until late in June - 90 days from when Kasich signed the legislation. In the meantime, an effort to repeal the law via voter referendum could keep it from taking affect until after a vote in November, if it were to survive.

But based on passage of the legislation by the General Assembly, and its signing by the governor, we move the Kasich-O-Meter for this promise to In the Works.

Comment on this item.