Bonus Increase
Principals Get Pay Performance Rates

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

The Department of Education has divulged the standards for school administrators to get the performance bonuses promised in the most recent contract.

JOEL I. KLEIN: Upgrades incentives.

The top 1 percent of Principals working in schools where students show the most academic improvement will receive $25,000. The next 2 to 5 percent will get $17,000, the following 6 to 10 percent will receive $12,000 and the next 11 to 20 percent will collect $7,000.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein also announced that Principals who achieve high marks for two or three consecutive years will get an additional $2,500 and $7,500 respectively. Assistant Principals will collect half of whatever their Principals receive.

Accountability Emphasis

The ramped-up bonus system is part of the Bloomberg administration's reliance on test scores to determine student progress and emphasis on making educators responsible for their students' achievement levels.

"The criteria set by the Chancellor for the 2007-2008 performance bonus was developed in consultation with the CSA," said Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Ernie Logan. "Although we remain in discussions about the criteria for District 75 and K-2 schools, we do believe this is a fair process for our members."

The new bonus system does not apply to administrators in District 75 or those who supervise kindergarten through second grade schools. CSA and the DOE have formed a labor-management committee to figure out how support personnel, such as Supervisors of and Education Administrators, will be awarded performance bonuses within the new structure. Under the previous pact, school-based Supervisors and EAs received half of what their Principals collected.

At Klein's Discretion

The CSA contract approved in May included a guarantee of up to $25,000 in bonuses for the highest-performing Principals, but Mr. Klein had the authority to designate the tiers and specific amounts. The consecutive-year bonuses were not stipulated in the pact.

DOE officials will use School Progress reports, comprised mostly of standardized test scores but which also include attendance rates and school surveys, to determine the highest-performing Principals. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein wrote a letter to Principals stating, "There will now be clear performance pay standards under which principals and assistant principals are rewarded for excellence as measured by the academic performance of their students."

Apples to Apples

The system will compare similar schools to determine where progress has been greatest, and will take into account test scores of incoming students, poverty rates, English Language Learners and special education to create cohorts of like schools.

Under the previous contract, Principals could earn up to $15,000, but there was no extra money for consistent improvement. The bonuses went to the top 25 percent of Principals divided into three tiers of the top 5 percent, the following 6 to 15 percent and the next 16 to 25 percent. In the past, performance payments usually totaled $5-to-$7 million per year.

About 1,340 school administrators at 332 schools received bonuses last year, based on the previous contract's payment system.

As in past years, awardees must write an essay describing the strategies that they believe led to their schools' success, which is then distributed to other Principals in effort to create best practices across the system.

The performance payments could come on top of $25,000 bonuses for executive Principals whom the Chancellor appoints to serve in high-needs schools for at least three years. Starting in the summer of 2009, up to 400 Principals per year also will be designated as "Principals in Charge" of summer school programs and will receive a $2,500 differential.

If Principals received all the possible bonuses, they could total $52,500 per year, on top of a maximum salary of $154,295 in high schools, $148,224 in middle schools and $142,268 in elementary schools by 2010.