Is the merit pay debate settled?

07-21-2011

Hechinger Report

The controversy over tying teacher pay to performance, rather than seniority and credentials, has escalated in the past year. Teachers unions, which have mostly come out against such “performance” or “merit” pay, have been bolstering their arguments with research suggesting that it isn’t linked to increased student achievement. But education reformers have, for the most part, stood firm in their support of teacher bonuses based on student test-scores, noting shortcomings in the design of the many programs studied. (Some programs have awarded bonuses based on school-wide performance, while others have paid out relatively small amounts to individual teachers.) From 2007 until last year, the New York City Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers offered bonuses in a random sample of the city’s “high-needs” public schools. The RAND Corporation was hired to study the program’s results. According to RAND, the extra pay “did not, by itself, improve student achievement, perhaps in part because conditions needed to motivate staff were not achieved (e.g., understanding, buy-in for the bonus criteria) and because of the high level of accountability pressure all the schools already faced.” So does this put to rest the debate over performance pay? We asked two experts, Leo Casey and Gary Ritter, to discuss the latest study. (more...)

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Is the merit pay debate settled?

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