Pittsburgh Teaching Jobs Face Performance Pay Plan

A new education model could help create more Pittsburgh teaching jobs.

Pittsburgh Public Schools and the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers are currently in the middle of implementing "Empowering Effective Teachers in the Pittsburgh Public Schools" - a performance pay plan that's part of the $40 million grant the school district received from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The process of implementing the plan will include seven core initiatives designed to improve teacher efficiency and the learning environment in the district, according to an article by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Among those initiatives are:

• The creation of a Promise-Readiness Corp, which is made up of a team of teachers who would lead the same group of students from ninth through 10th grade.
• Expanded career opportunities through the creation of six new job classifications, which will result in 400 teaching positions
• A teacher academy to train incoming teachers in certain subjects.
• A teacher practice and evaluation system.
• Streamlining the district's human resources operation and IT technology platform to better track and place teachers and students.

The district administration and teachers union will ultimately have to approve key aspects of the performance-pay plan, because those aspects would have to be negotiated in the district's collective bargaining agreement.

Pittsburgh Public Schools was one of four districts throughout the country that received funding from the Gates Foundation. The organization hopes the funding will help address the challenge facing the American education system.

"What we are looking for is: What are the ways to improve student achievement?" Chris Williams, a spokesperson with the Gates Foundation, said. "Part of that is the idea that efficient teachers create better learning environments. But the challenge is how to measure that."

In addition to the $40 million grant, the Gates Foundation also is funding a two-year research project in eight school districts throughout the country - including Pittsburgh - to develop a method of teacher evaluation.