The United States has a long and dishonorable history of assigning the least effective, least qualified teachers to schools that serve the neediest children.
New York City is moving away from that shameful tradition, thanks in part to new recruitment and incentive strategies hammered out between City Hall and the United Federation of Teachers. A new bonus plan for teachers announced this week takes a smart approach to the process.
New York attracted the national spotlight when the city and the union agreed on a groundbreaking plan to reward teachers who improve student achievement in the neediest schools. The deal comes at a time when unions nationally are fighting hard to kill off performance-based incentives that are being considered for inclusion in the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.
The federal proposals reward individual teachers who improve their credentials and meet other guidelines. Critics argue that the individual-based programs destroy the teamwork and collegiality that are vital to improving performance in entire schools.
The New York program takes a schoolwide approach. Under it, needy schools that hit specified performance targets would receive $3,000 per union staff member. The school-based committee that distributes the money could do so equally or give disproportionate shares to teachers deemed to have made a greater contribution to schoolwide achievement.
New York's approach represents a good first step toward the goal of attracting teachers to the most challenging schools-and keeping them there. But the bonuses would have to grow for the program to have a lasting impact.
At the same time, school officials would need to make bigger changes-like cutting class sizes and improving support services-if they want to make real headway in improving student performance.
Editorial, Pages 18 on 10/31/2007