Washington, D.C. Public Schools

Michelle Rhee, the Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools believes educators are tired of being in a system that does not recognize, reward and value people for the incredibly hard work they are doing every single day. Rhee is in favor of merit pay. Not only does she want to recognize teachers she wants to reward them. She wants to pay them a lot of money--more than $100,000, compared with the national average salary of $47,600.

Her proposed two-tier pay structure system would offer teachers two tracks, a green track and a red track.

Educators who give the "green light" would get a more substantial raise and would be financially rewarded based on how well their students perform. The catch is that they would have to give up their tenure and be on probation for one year.

Teachers opposed to taking on the probation risk would have the "red light" option, which allows them to keep their tenure. These teachers would get a raise worth less than their "green light" counterparts, and would not be eligible for performance-based bonuses.

Rhee's program reduces the focus on "input differentials", such as a teacher holding a master's degree. In traditional models such factors typically guarantee a higher pay scale. Instead, it would emphasize student outcomes and evaluate teachers' ability to "move students from point A to point B". No specific measurement for those evaluations have yet been determined. Rhee does not expect all kids to move up at the same rate but rather that all kids move up. Rhee's goal is to reward strong teachers and purge incompetent ones and weaken the tenure system that keeps bad teachers in the classroom. At this time negotiations with the teacher's union are still on the table. However, the Office of the State Superintendent announced plans to tie teacher licensing to student achievement, sidestepping the union and giving Rhee the power to fire underperforming teachers.