Merit play plan for NYC schools

Merit play plan for NYC schools

	Published : Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:31 By : Agencies Print this Story

NEW YORK (AP) - It is one of the most hotly debated questions in education: Should teacher pay be tied to student achievement?

While many educators, labor leaders and elected officials continue to spar over the idea, known as merit pay, the nation's largest public school system and its teachers union have agreed on a form of it.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Wednesday that he and the United Federation of Teachers president, Randi Weingarten, have reached a deal on a $20 million-a-year merit pay program for 200 of the city's highest-need schools. The proposal needs state approval.

The bonuses would not be linked to individual student or classroom performance, but to school-wide gains measured by a new progress report system. The specific criteria for winning extra funds are still being determined.

Merit pay is a major issue in school districts and in Washington, where the concept is a sticking point in negotiations over the renewal of the five-year-old federal No Child Left Behind law.

Labor unions, including the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, oppose the idea of tying a teacher's paycheck to how well his or her students do on tests.

Weingarten, who is also a vice president of the 1.4-million-member American Federation of Teachers, says she does not support linking individual class or student performance to teacher compensation.

The deal outlined Wednesday is different, she said.

'When a school works as a team, when teacher voice is respected, when people are collaborative in partnership, schools succeed -- and that's how you use incentives, to help make schools succeed,' she said at a City Hall news conference.

Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman, said he is a 'capitalist' who believes in using rewards to encourage individual employee performance, but he said schools are different because educators often share responsibilities.

'It's really hard to tell whether it is just you and your students or whether it's other teachers in the school that support you, may in fact have the kids for parts of the day that you don't have them,' he said. 'And so having a school-wide system does make some sense.'

Under the plan, each school would appoint its own committee, made up of two UFT members and two principal's representatives, to decide how to divide any money that is awarded.

Those compensation committees could choose to spread funds evenly throughout the school or to give more to individual teachers who have shown particular progress. Seniority cannot be a factor in handing out the extra pay, the deal says.

Each qualifying school would have a choice of whether to opt into the program. The first year of bonuses would be paid with private money, followed by public funding if the program is deemed successful.

New York City's education system has 1,450 schools, 80,000 teachers and 1 million students. Its annual budget is $17 billion.