Baltimore may be beating the competition in NFL football these days, but it’s losing out to other cities in the battle to attract top-notch public school teachers.

That’s the takeaway message, at least, from a Sunday New York Times story about the success of the District of Columbia’s landmark merit pay system designed to incentivize “highly-effective” city school teachers with six-figure salaries.

The piece includes an anecdote about D.C. teacher Mark LaLonde, who lives in Baltimore because his wife has a job here and had considered taking a job with Baltimore City Public Schools “to avoid the tiresome commute” to the high school where he’s been teaching social studies for seven years.

Why did the 32-year-old Lalonde decide not to take a job in Baltimore? Money, he tells the Times.

“He gave up that flirtation after receiving the ‘highly effective’ rating twice and having his salary increase to $87,000 from about $58,000 last year,” according to the front page story by Sam Dillon. “He also earned a bonus of $10,000 for two consecutive years. In Baltimore, the union pay scale suggests that he would be making in the low $50,000s.”

If the idea of a merit pay system sounds familiar to Baltimoreans, that’s because, a year ago, school officials and teachers reached an agreement to institute a similar one.

But Baltimore  is behind schedule in implementing the controversial contract, as negotiations drag on to figure out the criteria for how teachers can advance and exactly how they will be rewarded.

School officials told the Sun they believe in the contract but acknowledge they misjudged how long it would take to replace the old system, which was based on seniority and advanced degrees. Meanwhile, teachers who had bitterly opposed the contract, said it has failed to improve the lives of students or teachers and would likely be rejected if put to a vote today.