How did this school end up with performance pay?
The New York Times earlier this week reported on the New Americans Academy, a 2nd year school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, that will eventually be K-5. The Times article focused on the Academy’s use of a modified open classroom.
But in a throw-away line they indicated that there had been a huge modification to our contract:
They found a space in an elementary school three blocks from Mr. Waronker’s [the principal – jd] home in Crown Heights, and in a special deal with the teachers’ union, he won the right to pay teachers on a scale that considered performance.
Also of note is the school’s use of a Master Teacher. I thought schools had to be on a special list of Transformation Schools to be eligible for Master Teachers?
Master Teachers (as I recall, could not find info on the UFT website) get more money for teaching fewer classes and for helping other teachers.
Performance Pay and Master Teachers are not the usual subject of SBOs. So what happened?
JD2718 
Besides being a master teacher and teacher center coordinator at the school, Lorraine Scorsone is Teacher Center coordinator of the NBPTS program at the UFTTC. I also read this announcement about the special deal in http://www.staradvertiser.com where it states, “…in a special deal with the teachers’ union, he won the right to pay teachers on a scale that considered performance.”
In the New American Academy website the home page also mentions that they are a “public school with a side contract.” http://www.thenewamericanacademy.org/#
In March 2010, the NY Post wrote an article about the school’s vision, purpose, and proposal.
There’s an interesting segment from the article.
“The New American Academy will also be the first school in the city to introduce what’s known as a “career ladder” for teachers, where promotion from one title to the next is based on merit, not length of service.
It’s a departure for the United Federation of Teachers, which has generally opposed merit-based pay scales but which has been an active member of the school’s planning committee.
Although city Department of Education officials said they were still hammering out the contract details, an agreement would mean that the four teachers would be earning different salaries, ranging from a first- or second-year “apprentice,” who averages $50,000 a year, to a “master,” who makes up to $120,000.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/school_in_class_by_itself_WJtdjd3565wlFg59YCefDL#ixzz1BDBlZvj4
Why wasn’t any of this deal ever mentioned at the D.A.? Was it ever mentioned at the Exec Board meeting? I thought the only deal that was made about paying master teachers a higher salary was with the transformation schools.
I’m also surprised. When did the union leadership start making back room deals that create a separate contract from all the other contracts in place? The question is did we all miss the announcement?
New Americans Academy is not a District 75 school.
Thank you for the correction. I got confused by the unusual school number, 17X770. Should have been obvious, district 17.