Newark teachers strike historic deal including bonuses for top educators

NEWARK — The Newark Teachers Union has reached a historic deal with the state that will make the district the first in New Jersey to offer bonuses based on how teachers perform in the classroom, union officials said today.

Education officials will announce a deal on a three-year contract today that includes annual bonuses that range from $2,000 to $12,500 for teachers rated “effective” or “highly effective” under a new evaluation system, said Joseph Del Grosso, president of the Newark Teachers Union.

Some of the money for the bonuses will come from the $100 million Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg pledged to Newark schools in 2010.

“It was a long, arduous road to get to an agreement,” Del Grosso said. “But we struck a really good deal.”

Teachers unions have traditionally resisted merit pay or any system that would link compensation to student performance. Del Grosso said the key to the Newark deal was a provision in the contract that will allow teachers to serve on the committees evaluating colleagues’ performance in the classroom.

Each school will have a three-person evaluation committee that includes a school administrator, a principal and a teacher with equal power, Del Grosso said.

“We will have a say in our own destiny,” Del Grosso said. “We’re militant in that we want to control our own profession.”

Union officials and Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson will sign the preliminary deal this afternoon, said Nat Bender, a spokesman for the American Federation for Teachers New Jersey, the statewide union associated with the local Newark teachers union.

Bender said the union and the district discussed merit pay — or “performance enhancers” — for months.

“All of the negotiations have been at the table,” Bender said.

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