With Race to Top Implications, Hawaii Teachers to Vote on New Contract

by Stephen Sawchuk, Education Week, January 17, 2012

Hawaii's teachers will vote Thursday on a new, six-year contract that would establish a new teacher-evaluation system, tie pay raises partly to evaluations, and end a 5 percent salary reduction that Gov. Neil Abercrombie enforced last July.

And the labor agreement could potentially help the state make its case to remove some of the conditions that the U.S. Department of Education put on its $75 million Race to the Top award. As colleague Michele McNeil has reported, the state has been in the doghouse with the Education Department for failing to reach agreement with its teachers' union on the shape of a new evaluation system, one of the core promises in its RTT application.

Here's a rundown of what teachers will be asked to vote on in the tentative agreement....

read the rest at ... Education Week