RICHMOND -- The state Department of Education is planning to revise teacher accountability standards, which currently require evaluations to be conducted every three years and do not tie them to pay.

According to plans presented to the state board of education Thursday, new guidelines would require evaluations to consider student growth as a "significant" factor.

The state Department of Education plans to design research-based evaluation models over the next few months. Officials hope to try out the models next year in school divisions with low achieving and high poverty schools.

State Superintendent Patricia Wright said the models must be strong enough to allow schools to use evaluations to make performance pay decisions, if they so choose. "It is not a mandate," she said. "I've told our educators this is something we will do with them, not to them."

The plans were part of Virginia's failed first round application for Race to the Top federal funding. The work will be funded from other federal sources.

The state also won $17.5 million in May to develop data systems that will allow it to tie student and teacher performance. Virginia has been tracking student performance for 15 years with its Standards of Learning accountability program.

The department is also moving forward on new guidelines and accountability procedures for virtual schools serving multiple districts. The issue of how the entities that run them will be paid is being left up to the General Assembly.

Several board members said they hoped to improve on the structure that has been used for federally mandated tutoring services. They learned Thursday that tutoring has had little effect on student performance over the past few years. Schools that miss certain federal benchmarks must offer tutoring from approved vendors.

Wright said Virginia's reform efforts on teacher evaluations and alternatives such as charter, lab and virtual schools should answer critics.

"Are we standing on the sidelines? Not at all. We have the ball and we're running with it."