A spot on NY Daily News editorial saying NY should adopt the key terms of the DC contract:

National teachers union President Randi Weingarten has negotiated a groundbreaking contract for her members in Washington that must become a model for New York.

The deal represents a courageous step forward in recognizing that schools must be staffed only with instructors of proven effectiveness. It accepts rewarding those with special merit and recognizes that administrators need leeway to ease out those who fail to measure up.

Several of the tentative pact's provisions would be of enormous benefit in New York, to preserve the quality of education in the event of massive teacher layoffs and to save tens of millions of dollars in salaries now paid to unwanted instructors.

Gov. Paterson, the Legislature and Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch would be wise to work with New York's teachers unions in an effort to incorporate Weingarten's milestone reforms into New York's renewed application for as much as $700 million in federal Race to the Top funding.

If Weingarten's Washington members approve, they will get 20% raises and the ability to volunteer for a merit program that will reward proven effectiveness in boosting achievement with salaries of as much as $146,000.

Additionally, principals would be freed from following strict seniority when they bump teachers out of jobs because schools are downsizing. The primary criterion for judging which teachers to keep and which to let go would be performance.

…New York is in dire need of such a system.

…Those - plus merit pay - are essentially the terms of the Washington pact. Weingarten deserves enormous credit for taking major strides toward school reform, while remaining true to her members. She has shown the way for New York.

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