A Technical Review of Merit Pay

The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching recently released a report, “Creating a Successful Performance Compensation System for Educators,” which compiles much of the existing research on the subject into a very vanilla but functional read on the issue.

It is interesting to see where some of the programs draw their money from. In one of the appendices they take a look at a merit program in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana and how they developed their financial model, including drawing money from Title I, II, V, IDEA, and the K-3 Reading Initiative. If they’re pulling the money for the teacher merit pay program from student programs, I sure hope the merit program is working. If not, it’s a terrible injustice.

Those interested in the issue might also get a kick out of “Performance-Pay for Teachers: Designing a System that Students Deserve,” from the Center for Teaching Quality. It’s a much easier read than the NIET report, with some solid examples on how a performance-pay program could work. You can find it here.

For a mildly contrarian point of view, consider finding a copy of the April 11th, 2007 edition of Education Week and reading the editorial “Not Performance Pay Alone: Teacher Incentives Must Be Matched by Systemwide Change.” You can’t get to it online without being an EdWeek subscriber, so try your local library (or here!). Written by Theodore Hershberg and Barbara Lea-Kruger of Operation Public Education, it makes the valid point that implementing merit pay without making some important systemic changes is a formula for failure.

Someday, a district here in Washington will take the leap. It’ll be a seminal moment.