Baltimore City Rejects new Pay for Performance Contract

Baltimore City Public School teachers recently rejected a proposed new contract that would provide across the board raises and allow some teachers - atleast one per school- to make more than $10,000 a year more than previous years.   Perhaps to no surprise, much of the discontent came from the more senior teachers- who perhaps had the most to lose without guaranteed year over year step increases. Younger teachers, who could perhaps rise up the salary ranks more quickly, were more supportive of the potential changes.  

One issue that must be addressed in any new evaluation system, is how principals and assistant pricipals will be evaluated.   If the rest of the nation is like Montgomery County, it is harder to get rid of a bad administrator than it is to get rid of a bad teacher.   And some of these bad administrators are the ones being asked to conduct the evaluations of teachers.   Not exactly reassuring.