Congratulations to ConnCAN (the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now), a group advocating public school reform, for creating a database of teachers contracts. It’s available here.

The idea is to provide parents, taxpayers and others with an interest in making public schools better (that should include everyone in the state) with a glimpse into the priorities of teachers unions and the school boards that approve their contracts. As a state or municipal budget is a translation of policy priorities into numbers, teachers contracts are translations of educational priorities into numbers and work rules.

ConnCAN made a number of intriguing observations after studying the data:

• Few districts tie salary to teacher performance or effectiveness: Only nine school districts (5 percent) tie teacher performance and effectiveness to salary increases, including New Haven, Hartford, Southington, West Haven, East Granby, Coventry, Columbia, Bloomfield, and Woodstock Academy. Also, only 50 school districts (29 percent) stipulate that salary increases can be withheld due to negative evaluations.

• Seniority is the key factor in most teacher layoffs, not performance: When it comes to teacher layoffs driven by budget cuts, seniority is either the sole or primary factor in 162 districts (93 percent). Conversely, no school districts use teacher evaluation results as the sole factor in layoffs, and only 34 school districts (19 percent) use teacher evaluations as a primary factor in layoffs.

• Starting teacher salaries can vary wildly from district to district: In Connecticut, the average starting salary for a first year teacher with a master’s degree is $46,971. But from district to district, that starting salary can vary wildly. For example, the average starting salary for a teacher with a master’s degree in Greenwich is $57,917. But, in Thomaston, the starting salary for that same teacher is $40,816.