Performance Pay Negotiation in Metro Attracts Outside Advocates

A new report from an Ohio-based education think tank places Metro Schools near the bottom of urban districts in terms of restrictive labor agreements with its teachers.

Author Michael Petrilli of the Thomas Fordham Institute says that as schools are held increasingly accountable for test scores under No Child Left Behind, so too, should individual teachers. He says the labor contract with the Metro Nashville Education Association prevents that.

“A principle is not allowed to consider student achievement when evaluating their teachers. That’s according to their labor agreement. Pretty remarkable. Not just test scores, but they can’t look at whether or not students are learning in the classroom when evaluating their teachers.”

Petrilli advocates around the country that teachers should be paid – at least in part – for their performances in the classroom. Metro Schools has a pilot program that pays bonuses for hard-to-fill positions in math, but not for student achievement.

The state mandated that all school districts have a so-called ‘differentiated pay plan’ before next school year which veers outside standard salary scales to offering financial incentives to work harder. The Metro School board has been in negotiations with the MNEA for months and reached an agreement late last week. The district will offer recruitment and retention bonuses at three schools that have had difficulty meeting federal benchmarks – Maplewood and Hillwood High Schools and Jere Baxter Middle. The bonuses will not be based on performance.

This week Vanderbilt University hosts a two day conference on performance pay starting tomorrow. Experts from around the country will discuss the pros and cons of paying teachers for the grades they can pull from students, including how merit-based pay can lead educators to game the system.

Here’s the Fordham study.