Weingarten Sees Support For Merit Pay

Schools eligible for a new citywide experiment to base teacher salaries on test scores are voting at a 10-to-1 ratio to adopt the program, the president of the teachers union, Randi Weingarten, told The New York Sun yesterday.

Teachers at some of the 200 or so eligible schools said the program is also facing some hurdles. At least one eligible school, the Bushwick Community High School in Brooklyn, has voted not to participate, a teacher, David Donsky, confirmed. Mr. Donsky declined to comment on why teachers voted overwhelmingly against the plan.

At another school, the New Lots School in East New York, teachers approved the performance-based pay program only narrowly — despite a false notion among some teachers that the principal could deny teachers bonus money and take it for herself.

Only union members are eligible for the bonus pay. But a teacher at New Lots, Vikash Reddy, said teachers got a different idea at an informational meeting with a union representative.

"He said his impression was that that money could be divided to the principal or to an assistant principal as well," Mr. Reddy said.

After a search for more information — Mr. Reddy said that, lacking anything else, he studied a Department of Education press release — a group of teachers tried to correct the misconception.

But Mr. Reddy and another teacher, Gregory Schmidt, said they may not have corrected all false notions, and they said the city and union should have provided more information.

A Department of Education spokeswoman, Melody Meyer, said union and city officials held three information sessions and sent a letter to the principal and a union member at each school explaining the program.

Teachers union officials said they also put out extensive information.

Mr. Schmidt said concerns about test prepping also fueled opposition. "There's already a lot of emphasis on test scores," he said. "People didn't like the idea of amplifying that emphasis even more."

A teacher at the W.H. Maxwell Career and Technical Education High School, Charles Turner, said he expects his school to vote in favor of merit pay.

"The biggest problem at schools like mine is that people don't stay there," Mr. Turner said. "Hopefully this is enough money to attract people to a school like ours and stay."

City and union officials would confirm neither which schools are eligible nor which are participating in the program, but Ms. Weingarten said support is overwhelming.

"Right now, from the precincts reporting, we're seeing already a 10 to 1 vote in favor, 10 schools voting in favor to every one school not," she said.