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The full impact of the city’s short-lived experiment in teacher performance pay could still be felt.

The Department of Education confirmed today that it has ended a three-year-old school-wide bonus program that was called “transcendant” when it was introduced. The decision, spurred by a RAND Corporation report that was commissioned by the Department of Education’s private fundraising wing, follows a previous study that found no performance boost for participating schools. We reported in March that the city had quietly suspended the bonus program.

(Read the complete RAND report.)

The city will save money this year by not disbursing the bonuses, which it says cost $56 million over the life of the initiative. (The previous report, which the city did not commission, put the costs even higher, at $75 million.)

But the long-term effect could come from a pension sweetener introduced to get the teachers union on board with the controversial program. Then-UFT President Randi Weingarten hinged her support for the bonus program on a change in the law that would allow teachers to retire early, starting at 55 instead of 62, without taking a hit to their pensions. (more…)