Educational reforms have occurred throughout the history of public education. In 2009, the federal Race to the Top initiative was born and included many educational reform models. To have these reform models gain traction at the state level, a call was made by the U.S. Department of Education (Race to the Top Program Executive Summary, 2009) for…

In November 2010, Baltimore's Fund for Education Excellence and the Annie E. Casey Foundation approached the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) and requested a case study of the implementation of Baltimore City Public Schools' (City Schools) portfolio strategy. These local foundations were interested in understanding how the district…

The Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) provided states with newfound flexibility on accountability measures and school improvement strategies. Many policy experts have analyzed states' ESSA plans, which explain how states use their federal funds under various provisions of the new law, as well as the approaches states take to identify and rate…

Public Impact asked a simple question: "Will our nation's boldest efforts to recruit more top teachers and remove the least effective teachers put an excellent teacher in every classroom?" They ran the numbers and discovered the disappointing answer: No. But that's not the end of the story. With a change in schools' strategies, they realized, 87…

In today's school reform discussions, the teaching profession is often mistakenly viewed as a singular activity. Evaluating teachers for their performance in the classroom assumes that the focus should be on each individual teacher. Merit pay and performance pay both assume that student achievement is the result of only the individual teacher. But…

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…

One of the most frequently discussed topics in education reform circles is teacher pay--how much money teachers make, for what work and who decides teachers' salaries. Over time, educator pay reform has included many different reward structures and goes by as many different names, such as merit pay, performance pay and differentiated pay. The…

Whether referred to as "pay-for-performance" (PFP) or "merit pay," attempting to tie educators' compensation to their performance in the classroom and students' performance on high-stakes tests has been a key component of many educator compensation reform efforts in the last five years. This issue looks at PFP systems broadly…

President Obama's Educate to Innovate initiative has provided billions in additional federal funding for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs across the country. The Administration's recognition of the importance of STEM education-- for global competitiveness as well as for national security--is good and…

Our nation is squandering one of its most important resources--our best teachers--and children are paying the price. Current policy initiatives overlook the most obvious, immediate source of improved teaching effectiveness: The great teachers we already have. The top 25 percent of U.S. teachers--more than 800,000 of them--already achieve results…

Hamilton County, Tennessee, engaged in a multi-year effort to improve teaching in a group of eight central city elementary schools. This reform, known as the Benwood Initiative, was funded with $5 million from the Chattanooga-based Benwood Foundation. Student achievement improved dramatically as a result of this initiative. The Benwood successes…

The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) supports projects that are designed to reform teacher and principal compensation. Initially, the Department of Education (the Department) made two rounds of awards, in 2006 and 2007, to a total of 34 grantees. The specific goals of TIF were to reward teachers and principals for improving student achievement,…

Having a quality teacher in the classroom is the most powerful influence on student success. With excellent educators, adequate resources and effective support, Colorado will meet Governor Ritter's goals of decreasing drop-outs, closing the achievement gaps and increasing achievement for all students. Recruiting, hiring, retaining and supporting…

Across a range of contexts, reductions in education costs and provision of subsidies can boost school participation, often dramatically. Decisions to attend school seem subject to peer effects and time-inconsistent preferences. Merit scholarships, school health programs, and information about returns to education can all cost-effectively spur…

This paper examines the relationship between policy, organizational type, and the utilization of extrinsic incentives. Charter school reform spread throughout the country in the 1990s, providing the unique opportunity to study over a thousand new public organizations and the innovative operational decisions they made. Traditional public schools…