Feds insist on giving Oregon millions more to pay high-performing teachers | OregonLive.com

Feds insist on giving Oregon millions more to pay high-performing teachers | OregonLive.com

Feds insist on giving Oregon millions more to pay high-performing teachers

Published: Monday, April 18, 2011, 9:00 AM

By Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian
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View full sizeDoug Beghtel/The OregonianTeachers at six Oregon City schools will be eligible for a collective $2 million in bonus pay beginning next year. A new system for evaluating teacher and principal performance and determining how performance pay will be awarded is still under design.

The Chalkboard Project had a nice problem to solve recently: After the Obama administration awarded the Portland-based nonprofit group $13 million to try to improve the quality of teaching in seven Oregon school districts, the feds circled back and insisted the group apply for even more money to pay to top-performing teacher and principals.

The group did so, naturally, andlearned late last week that it has been awarded an additional $11 million. All of that will be paid to high-performing educators in Oregon City, Salem, Redmond and four other districts beginning in 2012.

"We are grateful to be able to give our educators more money for the excellent work they do,” said Jerry Hudson, chairman of the board of the Chalkboard Project, a nonprofit collaboration of several leading Oregon charities that works to improve teacher quality in the state.

Each school district, in collaboration with its teachers union, will design its own methods for