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The city and the teachers union have struck a performance pay deal that will tie some teachers’ salaries to a range of measures of their effectiveness, including their students’ test scores.

The deal is part of a federal grant program to “turn around” the city’s most struggling schools. It also builds on a teacher evaluation agreement reached between the union and state education officials last month. According to the deal, 34 schools that have been designated as persistently lowest achieving will be able to pay model teachers significantly more money to take on greater responsibilities. Deemed the best-of-the-best, these teachers will mentor their colleagues, write curriculum, and open their classrooms to teachers who want to watch a lesson.

City officials have decided that 11 of these 34 schools will undergo the transformation model beginning next September. This means they can get support services, have an extended school day or an entirely new schedule, and can keep the teachers they have. In some cases, the city may decide to replace these schools’ principals.

The other 23 schools will experience one of three other plans offered by the federal government: turnaround (in which all teachers are excessed and only half can be re-hired and the principal is replaced); restart (in which a charter school replaces the district school); or closure. Department of Education officials have yet to decide which of these schools will go through which models.

Deputy Chancellor John White said the city would inform the 34 schools whether they will go through the transformation model or not in the next 24 hours.

Under the new performance pay agreement, teachers will apply to be “turnaround teachers” or “master teachers,” at both turnaround and transformation schools. With these new titles, and accompanying bonuses, city officials believe they can draw great teachers to these schools and make sure the good ones who are there, stay put.

Turnaround teachers will teach a full course load — in high schools that’s five classes — while spending at least 30 hours a year helping their colleagues in the school. That could mean helping another teacher plan his lessons, or demonstrating a model lesson. As a reward, these teachers will receive bonuses of 15 percent of their salaries.

One step up from that is the master teacher position, for which a person must teach at least four classes a day. An additional two periods must be used to train other teachers either through one-on-one mentoring or by running professional development seminars. Master teachers’ bonuses will be 30 percent of their salaries.

“It’s groundbreaking because 30 percent is meaningful, 15 percent is meaningful,” White said. “A 1,000 or 2,000 dollar bonus will have some effect on people’s lives, but it won’t compel the kind of transformation that will 15 and 30 percent increases.”

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said the deal to create the bonus program doesn’t mean the union had agreed to a merit pay system for individual teachers (the current program is school-wide).

“It’s a career ladder,” he said. “Merit pay is based entirely on test scores. If you’re doing more work, you should be compensated. It’s not a shiny new merit pay system.”

Teachers who apply to be turnaround or master teachers next year will be vetted by a committee composed of four teachers union representatives and two Department of Education employees. Piloting the new teacher evaluation system, the committee will rate teachers, with 40 percent of the evaluation based on their students’ test scores and 60 percent on performance reviews, attendance, and other factors.

Principals will hire master and turnaround teachers from this pool of vetted candidates. By 2011, the city expects to do way with the committee screening process and rely on the teacher evaluation system to separate teachers into four categories: highly effective, effective, developing, and ineffective.

How long the city will be able to offer these bonuses is uncertain. Over the course of the next three years, each of the 34 schools will receive $6 million in federal stimulus money — $2 million per year — that will pay for the bonuses. At the end of that time period, the bonuses could become part of the teachers contract and be paid by the city.