Why merit pay will improve teaching

In the Mathematica series, researchers reported on the year-by-year implementation of merit-based teacher pay incentives in over school districts from the cohort of grantees. Authors studied school surveys from all districts and student performance data from 10 specially chosen districts schools total, with testing data drawn from students in grades 3—8 between the —13 and —16 school years. In both reading and math, students in evaluation districts made clear, if modest, gains over the four years of the TIF program.

That amounts to roughly three or four weeks of instruction across the four years of the program. Even as they recorded noticeable improvements, however, the majority of participating districts from the cohort also reported persistent frustrations. In each year of the program, more than half of all districts 63 percent in year two, 48 percent in year three, and 58 percent in year four cited financial sustainability of TIF as a major concern.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated merit pay for teachers was the U. Department of Education 's highest priority. The goals of the Teacher Incentive Fund are the following: [9].

Despite support and incentives from the federal government, merit pay adoption has not been implemented at the school district level. The National Center on Performance Incentives found in a report that only about 3. A report by Stuart Buck and Jay P. Greene stated, "most were so weak that they represented no meaningful change from traditional compensation systems. Unions have also succeeded in blocking merit pay implementation in states like Florida , Iowa and Texas that have passed laws supporting the practice.

In Iowa, only three of districts applied for the Career Ladder and Pay-for-Performance grant program. Texas also struggled with implementation of their District Awards for Teacher Excellence program after only 20 percent of districts opted into the program in Some merit pay plans are designed to reward outstanding work by individual teachers.

Others are based on the assumption that student progress depends on the cooperative work of a teaching team and therefore lead to bonuses or pay increases to the entire staff of a particular school, sometimes including non-professional staff.

Merit pay should not be confused with pay for achieving certain credentials, whether advanced degrees or certifications based on peer evaluations of portfolios. Nor should it be confused with skill-based pay , which involves higher salaries for teachers with scarce qualifications e. Tying teacher bonuses to student performance, evaluations or other metrics have been a common method of implementing teacher merit pay plans.

At the height of participation in this plan about districts participated in the program. New Jersey implemented the state's first merit pay plan for teachers in Newark Public Schools. Proponents of merit pay claim that it results in better education outcomes for students.

Critics of merit pay argue that there is research demonstrating that merit-based pay alone does not increase student achievement, and they claim negative effects of merit-based pay. In May and June of the organization Education Next conducted its ninth annual survey of a nationally representative sample of some 4, respondents. The survey included questions about curricula, testing, school choice options, and federal, state or local control and teacher merit pay, among other things.

The survey showed that roughly half of the general public supports merit pay for teachers, with Republicans being slightly more in favor, and Democrats being slightly more against it. The studies that criticize merit-based pay argue that such a system can be very costly because when the incentives are too low, the teachers are not motivated, so the incentives must be high.

The study concludes that for a merit program to work, it must align the students' scores to teacher motivation. The analyses that included professional development in the studies were the ones that shed the most light on whether merit programs can effectively influence the outcome of the students and incentivize the teachers to improve. Finally, the meta-analysis emphasizes the criticism of merit pay programs as they are not usually permanent, either because incentives end up running out or because incentives are often always awarded to the same teachers, discouraging those who have never achieved the incentives.

Also, the duration of the incentive programs is usually short, 3. Although salary incentives continue to generate debate, these programs are prevalent due to the desire to motivate and reward educators for improving the performance of their students and helping the institution to achieve its goals.

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