Cincinnati Teachers Rebuff Bonus-Pay Design

By Jeff Archer

Union leaders and administrators in Cincinnati are asking why teachers last week rejected a joint union-district plan to give educators bonuses if their schools could demonstrate overall improvement.

Members of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers voted 1,160 to 804 against the "school incentive award" program that staff representatives and district officials designed over the past seven months.

The plan would have placed the 52,400-student Ohio district among a growing number of systems across the country that are experimenting with incentive-pay programs in a profession where union contracts have traditionally had compensation based solely on teachers' education and experience. Similar programs are at work in districts in North Carolina and Texas, and a statewide incentive program is...