Governors and other state leaders have shown an increasing interest in creating new models of teacher compensation that would reward educators based on their contributions to student learning. To support this interest, the National Governors Association (NGA) hosted a policy academy focusing on that issue. The policy academy provided teams with…

The purpose of the study is to show the various perceptions teachers have on merit pay. This research was designed to examine the perceptions and attitudes of teachers towards the idea of performance based pay. This topic has been an ongoing battle within school systems since the 1800s. The participants in this study were teachers from the state…

Making robust and reliable information about schools accessible is one of the most powerful ways to foster engagement and promote informed decisions that will shape our communities. Though education data is frequently collected and aggregated at the state level, data is rarely synthesized across cities. This report provides comparable information…

Created by the U.S. Congress in 2006, the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) represents the first federal initiative targeted directly at state and district efforts to introduce performance measures into educator compensation. TIF responds to a growing body of evidence that existing pay structures do not respond to labor force realities or adequately…

Do teachers' salaries reflect their ability to teach effectively? This is an important question given that teacher salaries account for approximately 37 percent of total education expenditures across the United States. Furthermore, the objectives of the "No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)" for increased student achievement and the presence…

For five years running, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has tracked states' teacher policies, preparing a detailed and thorough compendium of teacher policy in the United States on topics related to teacher preparation, licensure, evaluation, career advancement, tenure, compensation, pensions and dismissal. The 2011 State Teacher…

This Indiana's edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) 2009 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" is the third annual look at state policies impacting the teaching profession. It is hoped that this report will help focus attention on areas where state policymakers can make changes that will have a positive impact on…

Extensive testing data from federal, state, and private sources indicate that Indiana students underperform their peers in most other states. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the shortcomings of Indiana students relative to students elsewhere are most severe among students from middle- and upper-income families. Forty percent of 3rd-graders, 52…

This report compares various factors associated with educational reform to student outcomes in Calumet Region (Lake and Porter Counties) in northwest Indiana. Specifically, this study examines the influence of these factors on students' educational success as measured by an index of excellence: a composite measure that includes attendance rates;…