Union Buy-In Varies Among Big TIF-Grant Winners

Some Districts Have Yet to Get Unions to Sign Off on Their Merit-Pay Plans

Four urban school districts that have won some of the largest shares of the $442 million in grants handed out last month through the federal Teacher Incentive Fund have varying levels of buy-in from their local teachers' unions, which could affect how their plans for performance-based teacher compensation play out.

On the one hand, the plan for Pittsburgh schools, awarded $37 million, has been approved by the local teachers' union through collective bargaining. And in Austin, Texas, the local teachers' union has backed the winning proposal and is poised to be a key player in executing it. The 85,000-student Austin Independent School District, which was awarded $62 million in TIF money, is located in a state that doesn't have collective bargaining for most public employees.

But, on the other hand, local teachers' unions have not yet signed off on the winning plans from Chicago Public Schools or the New York City Department of Education, which got $34 million and $36 million, respectively, when the latest round of TIF grants were announced on Sept. 23. Those plans must still go...