Weingarten Praises Newark Merit Pay Scheme: "win-win-win" NEW Caucus calls for "No" vote

[HiPointDem]

Newark Public Schools and the Newark Teachers Union have reached a tentative deal that includes a universal salary scale linking teacher bonuses to classroom performance — making the district the first in New Jersey to implement a merit-pay program ....HufPo

“This agreement is a win for students, a win for teachers and a win for Newark," American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a statement Thursday. "It recognizes the quality of educators’ work, values their experience and training, ensures they have a say in decisions affecting teaching and learning in their schools, and makes teacher retention a priority by, among other things, adjusting salaries to allow teachers to earn more money earlier in their careers." -- HufPo

Remember the days when Randi used to claim that only school-wide and not individual merit pay would be acceptable? After the Chicago story of resistance here is another sellout. Given the national situation I'm still surprised that Randi would be so openly supportive of a situation so contrary to Chicago...

This contract is the beginning of the end of the salary structure. We know how this drill will end. Most salaries will in the long run go down as the highest paid teachers will be rated poorly, then fired and replaced with shorter-term newbies while a few will get merit pay.

Teachers rated “effective” or “highly effective” under a new evaluation system will be eligible for annual bonuses ranging from $2,000 to $12,500, according to a NTU statement Thursday. The new contract also includes $31 million in “retroactive pay” divided among all union members to compensate for the two years since the current deal expired on July 1, 2010. The new agreement will be in effect until June 30, 2015.

Here is some info from the Newark Education Workers (NEW) Caucus, which appears to be a sister-type group to MORE and CORE...

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2012/10/weingarten-praises-newark-merit-pay.html

[Reader Rabbit]

1. Newark teachers need to go Chicago on someone's ass.

Time for the people on the front lines to take over the union? I think so.

[mjrr_595]

4. indeed

[HiPointDem]

2. what newark can expect: the example of baltimore

Baltimore teachers voted down a contract negotiated by the local AFT affiliate back in 2010, a contract that agreed to base 50% of evaluations upon test scores, got rid of salary steps and added merit pay provisions. The contract was praised by AFT President Randi Weingarten as a model, innovative contract...

Weingarten was embarrassed when the contract was rejected by a 1,540 to 1,107 vote, so she did what she does best - worked behind the scenes to make sure reformers got their model, innovative contract... (and they did.)

Weingarten took a bow for getting that contract voted through the second time around and then moved on to reform efforts elsewhere, her sell-out work in Baltimore done.

And how did that "innovative" contract work out in Baltimore?

Not so well:

A significant number of Baltimore teachers — in some schools as many as 60 percent of the staff — have received unsatisfactory ratings on their midyear evaluations as the system moves to implement a pay-for-performance contract that's considered a bellwether for a national movement.

Teachers contend that the high number of "performance improvement plans," which can be a precursor for dismissal, is an attempt to avoid paying raises. But city school officials say that putting teachers on such plans is part of broader efforts to help them become more effective in the classroom....

Have you got it now? They're not out to give merit pay raises to everybody in the system. They're out to fire as many as they can, hand out as few salary increases as possible and overall use the new evaluation laws to bludgeon teachers into submission.

http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/

"Where is Randi standing up for the 60% of Baltimore teachers getting "u-rated" and put on the list to be fired? I'll tell you where she is - she's nowhere to be found in Baltimore and is rather lurking around in New Jersey where she's doing the reformers' work on this Newark contract."

[sulphurdunn]

3. Weingarten

is the Manchurian Candidate who became president of the AFT.