Synopses & Reviews
Teacher compensation as an avenue for school reform is once again growing in popularity and use. The U.S. education system is now at a critical juncture that requires thoughtful and informed consideration of compensation policies. Performance Incentives offers the most up-to-date and complete analysis of the promise and controversy around teacher pay for performance and recruitment and retention bonuses.
Matthew G. Springer of Vanderbilt University, director of the National Center on Performance Incentives, brought together an interdisciplinary team of nationally recognized scholars to address the issues surrounding teacher compensation reforms. Their purpose was to identify the potential strengths and weaknesses of performance-driven compensation policies and address key conceptual and implementation issues that have dominated the debate. Among the specific questions addressed:
- Why focus on teacher compensation as an avenue for school reform?
- How does scholarship and experience in other fields inform exploration of performance incentive policies in American K-12 education?
- What are the legal and political dynamics of teacher compensation reform?
- What type of educator incentive pay plans do teachers design for themselves?
- Can we effectively measure teacher and school performance, justifying policies that link pay to on-the-job performance?
- What has been the impact of performance incentive programs on teacher behavior and student outcomes?
Synopsis
The concept of pay for performance for public school teachers is growing in popularity and use, and it has resurged to once again occupy a central role in education policy. Performance Incentives: Their Growing Impact on American K-12 Education offers the most up-to-date and complete analysis of this promising --yet still controversial --policy innovation.
Performance Incentives brings together an interdisciplinary team of experts, providing an unprecedented discussion and analysis of the pay-for-performance debate by
- Identifying the potential strengths and weaknesses of tying pay to student outcomes;
- Comparing different strategies for measuring teacher accomplishments;
- Addressing key conceptual and implemen - tation issues;
- Describing what teachers themselves think of merit pay;
- Examining recent examples in Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas;
- Studying the overall impact on student achievement.