A D.C. nonprofit group is offering teachers $1,000 a week to lobby for Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s cash-for-tenure program, prompting charges from some education advocates that the payments are improper.

Rhee’s plan to give fat pay raises to teachers who give up their seniority rights has run into heavy resistance from the Washington Teachers’ Union.

A group calling itself Strong Schools D.C., which claims to be backed by some prominent members of the District’s business class, is attempting to break down that resistance.

In an e-mail obtained by The Examiner, the group is offering teachers $1,000 a week to serve as part-time “outreach coordinators.” Their job: sell the chancellor’s deal to their colleagues.

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Strong Schools official Alex Lawson told The Examiner that there was nothing wrong with the bounties.

“We’re paying people a salary for the work they’re doing,” he said. He also denied that his group had any contact with Rhee’s staff.

But some activists are outraged by the tactic, citing federal laws forbidding influence peddling in union elections.

“I say that what they are doing is illegal, and they should be exposed for trying to buy teachers’ votes,” schools activist Cherita Whiting said.

Rhee and Mayor Adrian Fenty have struggled to improve the city’s chronically underperforming $1 billion school system. They’ve promised to make accountability their top priority and have sought to remove some office workers and teachers. But the union has dug in its heels in recent weeks, led by activists like union General Vice President Nathan Saunders.

“Disappointingly, the chancellor and her agents are attempting to rob teachers of their right to unbiased information and employment choice disguised by cash,” Saunders told The Examiner.

Rhee declined comment. Her spokeswoman, Mafara Hobson, said neither her boss nor the mayor had any idea that Strong Schools was offering cash to teachers. Hobson said Rhee thought “all teachers should be well-informed about the impending contract.”

Among those who have received Strong Schools’ advertisement are teachers in Teach for America, the same nonprofit group in which Rhee once worked.

Strong Schools claims the support of many of D.C.’s leading citizens, including education advocate Terry Goings and America Online executives James Kimsey and George Vradenburg. Goings sat on a panel that approved Rhee’s hiring.

The list also includes at least two teachers: Kathy Patterson and Lauren Castillo. Earlier this week, Castillo, a special education teacher at Jefferson Junior High School, sent out a mass e-mail urging her comrades to approve Rhee’s cash-for-tenure program.

Got a lead on this story? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or send him an e-mail at bmyers@dcexaminer.com.