breed.  They work long hours—often 10 hours a day and sometimes 12 hours when there are special events and huge homework assignments to grade.  Teachers also engage in continual professional development in order to maintain their various licenses and are now required to earn at least a Masters Degree. A salary of $60,000 (average CPS teacher salary) would insult similarly trained professionals in private industry.  Nurses with a two-year Associates Degree earn more than a Masters level teacher in his or her first year in Cincinnati Public Schools. They will continue to earn more than teachers throughout their careers. 

It is true that CPS teachers earn a little more than some of our suburban counter-parts, but it is also true that urban students present additional challenges.  Further, CPS teachers are among the most highly trained teachers in the state of Ohio.  CPS has more National Board Certified teachers than any school district in Ohio.  Even though the Enquirer refuses to acknowledge it, CPS also has many performance pay structures.  Through negotiations the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers and the district created one of the most sophisticated and successful lead teacher certification and teacher evaluation systems in the country. Along with National Board Certification and the new Teacher Advancement Program, they form the core of an innovative performance pay system.  Until former Superintendent Frailey removed the incentive, CPS and CFT also developed and maintained a highly successful building incentive program that rewarded teachers and staffs of any building that met performance benchmarks.  The teachers union does not stand in the way of performance innovations of this sort, and in fact, the union helped to create some of these structures as long as 20 years ago.  CPS teachers are more rigorously evaluated than any teachers in our state and quite possibly in the nation.  CFT and CPS have demonstrated a commitment to quality teaching that few other school districts in Ohio have matched and that accounts for why Cincinnati Public outperforms other urban districts in Ohio and is considered a national model.

For the Enquirer to roll out tired arguments about teachers and unions that don’t convey the reality of Cincinnati Public Schools is sloppy journalism,  reflects an uninformed opinion, and.......