Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, an education budget subcommittee co-chairman, is sponsoring a bill to set up a task force to head up such studies.

Campbell hopes a task force might look at rewarding teachers for additional credentials, such as English as a second language or other endorsements, associated with raising student achievement.

"We're not against differentiated pay or performance pay by title," Campbell said. "What we're against is piecemealing it together and simply paying for student test scores, because student learning is much broader than a single test score."

Right now, Utah does not have a general performance pay model for teachers.

The state's $7.5 million elementary math improvement program, however, is tied to merit pay for teachers.

The state also gives bonuses to teachers in high-demand areas, like math, science and special education. Stephenson will carry another bill to give math and science teachers a $5,000-a-year permanent raise to help stem a teacher shortage in those areas.

The public is a little less hot on that effort.

Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said they'd strongly or somewhat favor paying teachers in high-demand subjects like math and science more money. Thirty-nine percent said they were against it, with 23 percent saying they strongly opposed it.

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E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com