MARBLEHEAD — The school district is considering a plan to use some of the $146,000 it received in federal Race to the Top funding for a merit pay program for teachers, called Pay for Performance.
The new program would not reward teachers for individual achievement, but instead give extra pay to all the teachers in a school that meets defined goals. Singling out teachers for individual bonuses or raises has long been opposed by teachers unions.
The program would need approval from the teachers union, administrators council and School Committee.
A committee started working on the idea in April and held six meetings to formulate a model, which was presented to the School Committee last Thursday by Acting Superintendent Brian Salzer. The idea, he said, was to "come up with a model to reward teachers for successful student academic achievement."
The model proposes each school building come up with goals they would have to meet, which, if accomplished, would reward all teachers at that school equally.
"The reward would be divided by the total number of people in the building," Salzer said. He said the money could also go back into resources for the school.
But School Committee member Jonathan Lederman expressed concerns.
"We are rewarding everyone equally?" he asked. "I wonder about a metric that says everyone gets the same benefit. To me, I see things that are sort of nonstarters here."
Salzer said rewarding individual teachers is so controversial, however, that it would never get union approval.
"The initial idea of rewarding certain people who perform at an excellent level they wouldn't accept whatsoever," Salzer said. "That would shut the model down completely."
School Committee member Dick Nohelty said he wanted to communicate with the committee that developed the model in order to try and stay on the same page.
"I don't want to waste their time," Nohelty said. "I know they are working hard. Some of this stuff doesn't seem like a race."
Race to the Top funding is aimed at rewarding schools for innovation aimed at improving teacher and student performance. Grant money is not directly attached to the Pay for Performance program but could be used to test the model.
"The idea would be to pilot the program using the grant money and then adopt it using the regular school budget. That would be the best possible process," Salzer said.
Salzer said he has shared the proposal with the administration council, and the teachers union has presented it to their membership.
"Once we get a reaction from those groups, we will decide how to move forward," he said.
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