My company pays a performance-based bonus (merit pays) every year.
His measure would bar bonuses not based on merit for as long as a company owed bailout money to the government.
As the union representing New York City teachers kicked off contract negotiations with the city yesterday, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani called for merit bonuses for teachers and the elimination of teacher tenure.
Their merit, for going forward.
In the past decade, a reform movement financed by some of the nation's wealthiest philanthropists has put forward entrepreneurial approaches: charter schools, business-style accountability for teachers and principals, and merit bonuses for top performers.
Ms. Hoyte, who unsuccessfully sued the Red Cross for wrongful termination, had received "excellent performance appraisals," according to the lawsuit, and received a bonus and merit raise in the two years before her firing.
In America, most companies are freezing or cutting the overall level of merit bonuses for this year, and one in ten plans to pay no bonuses at all.
Union officials said that if they had agreed to merit bonuses for every teacher in a school, they would have wanted the bonuses to be as small as possible so that teachers in other schools would not be too envious.
The bulk of the Newark money was dedicated to low-tech initiatives, such as merit bonuses for high-performing teachers.
The teachers rejected that plan last week on the grounds that it would create unhealthy competition, but said they would consider merit bonuses for every teacher in a school where students improved.
The decision received lukewarm support from the Giuliani administration, which supports merit bonuses for individual teachers who raise their students' test scores, and from the teachers' union, which insists on across-the-board bonuses for all teachers at a high-performing school.
