Merit-orious idea for better schools? Guv, Ackerman are for it; union's wary

IT WAS business as usual last week at Imani Education Circle Charter School, an African-centered school in the heart of Philadelphia's Germantown community.

The hallways were clean, the 450 students were clad in uniforms accented with African-inspired kente cloth. The classrooms were quiet and under the complete control of teachers.

Chief Executive Officer Francine Fulton will tell any visitor that PHOB is in effect every day: Peace, Harmony, Order and Balance.

But, since last school year, something that is not business as usual has also been in effect at the K-8 school that Fulton founded 10 years ago: merit pay.

In addition to their regular salaries, each teacher earned $2,300 in extra pay; veteran mentor and master teachers who work with their peers earned $4,500 and $9,000 extra, respectively.

"This is making teachers more accountable for what they do in the classroom," said Adrienne Davis, one of Imani's two master teachers, who work full-time coaching other teachers. "It's making them be more prepared for their lessons. It's making them be more self-reflective."

Whether called merit pay, incentive pay, performance pay or something else, linking teacher compensation to student performance is becoming an increasingly accepted practice in the United States.

President Obama drew applause during a March 10 speech in Washington before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce when he trumpeted the practice: "It's time to start rewarding good teachers, stop making excuses for bad ones."

Over the weekend, Gov. Rendell told the Daily News that he, too, backs merit pay.

The issue likely will come to a boil in Philadelphia this summer as negotiations heat up over a new contract for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman would like the contract to include what she's dubbed "strategic compensation."

PFT President Jerry Jordan is less than enthusiastic about it at the moment. "It's going to be a long, hot summer," he said.

Imani was one of four charter schools that signed up for the federally funded pay program after the PFT rejected the school district's request to begin the program in district-run schools.

One of those four - Discovery - has since dropped out of the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), and eight other schools have signed on.

Although all teachers got the same bonus amounts last year, their bonuses this year will be based on individual performance, as measured by tests and evaluations conducted by administrators as well as master and mentor teachers, said Tim Field, deputy of the district's Office of Charter, Partnership and New Schools.

Kwame Williams, a mentor teacher who teaches sixth grade at Imani, loves the program but believes that it is not for everyone.

"This is a program that either is going to make a teacher work or quit, because it's a lot of work," said Williams, 37, who has weekly meetings with teachers and helps them before and after school.

"If you're having a hard time being reflective about you as a teacher or what you need to be giving to students, then it may push you out," she said.

Christina Garcia, 32, who teaches fifth grade at Imani and is a mentor teacher, still has questions about the pay program.

"I'm still undecided about how fair it's going to be in the future," she said. "For me, it's too soon to tell. But I'm definitely grateful for being compensated for the extra work that I do, because I do understand that a lot of people don't get compensated for all the extra work that they do."

Fulton said that many teachers coming out of college are ill-prepared to teach and therefore benefit from the pay program's professional-development component.

Still, it takes more than merit pay to make a school work, said Fulton, whose school has met its yearly progress target four of the last five years.

"We have zero tolerance for the crazy," she said. "We don't do disrespect, we don't do baggy pants. We don't do profanity. So, we have a climate where school can actually take place."

The TAP program, under way at the 11 charter schools, has given Ackerman a model from which to work during negotiations with the teachers union, whose contract expires Aug. 31.

"Has the union agreed to this? No," Ackerman said. "Is it what we want to talk about and have considered? Absolutely."

So far, Ackerman said, she is pleased with how the pay program is working in the charters.

"I absolutely like it and we are seeing results," Ackerman said. "I think it encourages collaboration and, at the same time, built into the program is support for teachers, and it rewards success."

The four charters that started in the program last year received $419,999 in combined extra pay. Imani received $60,566; Harambee Institute received $133,451; People for People received $93,375; and Discovery - which is no longer in the program - received $132,607.

PFT president Jordan said that he is open to talking about paying teachers more for doing more, but opposes linking pay to student test scores or principal evaluations, or rewarding individual teachers as opposed to a school's entire staff.

"When you create an incentive for individual teachers, teachers begin to not work as a team," he said. "When you create that spirit of competition, then you really lose the effectiveness of what you are trying to do, and that is, hopefully, improving student achievement."

Ackerman said that she would be willing to start with whole-school rewards if that's what it would take to get the program off the ground.

The union reluctantly agreed to an enhanced-compensation system in its 2000 contract, but that plan was scrapped after a year due to a lack of funds.

Gov. Rendell said that the time is right to reward teachers based on what their students learn.

"I think teachers should negotiate their base pay through the collective-bargaining process, but there should be separate, additional merit-pay bonuses for teachers who succeed, based on the success of their students," he said Saturday.

In addition to test scores, Rendell said, bonuses could be based on factors such as attendance, and graduation and drop-out rates.

"Bonuses exist in virtually every other enterprise and seem to work well," he added.

School districts large and small already have taken that step. New York and Houston have plans that reward an entire school's teaching force.

In November, voters in Denver approved $25 million in new annual property taxes to fund the ProComp teacher-compensation system created by Denver Public Schools and the local teachers' union. All new teachers and 70 percent of veteran teachers are in the system.

In North Carolina, Guilford County Schools in 2006 launched Mission Possible, which pays good teachers up to $10,000 a year in extra pay.