New York City teachers have ratified a new contract, bringing to a close more than two years of bitter wrangling over the deal.
The agreement, approved by 63 percent of those voting, runs until October 2007. It requires retroactive raises to June 2003 and boosts salaries by a total of 15 percent. The maximum pay for a veteran teacher will rise from $81,200 to $93,400 a year.
It also calls for teachers to spend more time on the job and strips away some of the rights conferred by seniority, while giving principals more authority. Still, it did not go as far in revising work rules as 69´«Ă˝ Chancellor Joel I. Klein or Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had hoped it would.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the 140,000-member United Federation of Teachers, announced the vote results in a statement that called for Mr. Klein to “become a partner and not an adversary.”
