The Baltimore City Public Schools made national headlines late last year when the district adopted a new contract designed to take student learning and teacher professionalism to the next level. The three-year deal replaced conventional approaches to compensation--regular pay increases based on years in the system--with a new approach that gives individual educators real say in the pace of their advancement. Underpinning the approach was compensation that is based on earning achievement units (AUs). Also new under the agreement are four career pathways: standard teacher, professional teacher, model teacher, and lead teacher. The contract also weaves in multiple criteria to be included in teacher evaluation, and establishes a governing panel of educators and administrators to fashion these indicators of teacher and student performance. The Baltimore contract was lauded widely as a landmark agreement--one that combines proven approaches from other American Federal of Teacher districts and innovative approaches of its own.