Pay for performance and peer reviews are radical changes — but they also show what can be done with $50 million in private funding
By John Mooney
Credit: Howard Best/NPS
NTU president Joseph Del Grosso and Newark super Cami Anderson.
It is touted as a historic agreement, one that will remake how Newark teachers are judged and paid — one that may even serve as a model for other school districts around the country.
Announced yesterday, the tentative contract between the state-run Newark public school system and the 3,100-member Newark Teachers Union was hailed by such disparate players as Gov. Chris Christie and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.
Among its highlights: performance bonuses, peer reviews, and the first steps to end to the salary guides that all but guarantee a raise every year.
That’s not to slight the $100 million to finance the ambitious agreement over the next three years, half coming from private funders, including the Foundation for Newark’s Future, which is headed up by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
As innovative as it is, however, the contract can’t cure all of the Newark school district’s challenges.
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Highlights of Tentative Contract
Tentative Contract
For instance, it appears to do little about the excess teachers that continue to dog Newark’s billion-dollar budget. And while the mostly private money for performance bonuses may exist now, will it be there in the future?
The details of the deal are trickling out as the union rank and file reviews the contract over the next 10 days, with a vote a week from Monday. In the meantime, it’s not too early to assess where it could make a real difference to Newark schools and where challenges are likely to remain unresolved.
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