Background: Policy makers are increasingly adopting performance incentives to spur underperforming teachers as a way to improve teaching and student performance. However, much of the experimental research fails to find meaningful effects of performance incentives on either student achievement or teacher practice. Purpose/Objective: Using the…

Administrative support has been frequently identified as the most important factor influencing teachers' employment decisions (Burkhauser, 2017; Ladd, 2011). While many rural schools operate in hard-to-staff contexts that suffer from severe teacher shortages, it is unknown if rural teachers require rural context specific administrative support.…

Teacher salaries are the single most costly item in every state's education budget. This report provides both a historical overview and recent statistics on trends in teacher salaries. The report describes the status of teacher salaries in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states, defines "average" teacher salary, and…

Districts are facing a tough fight over incentive plans that offer teachers the chance to enter the performance contract race along with private firms. (Author)

Discusses the current single-step salary schedule used to compensate teachers in most public school systems. Presents a model for basing an incentive system for promotion and salary on a more equitable and realistic multiple-step system. (NKA)

The Scanlon Plan -- an industrial model -- has three essential aspects: group incentives for all employees in the organization; a negotiated, objective basis for distribution of incentives; and a formal system by which employees participate in decisions about management of the organization. (Author/JF)

This presentation discusses strategies upon which to base teacher incentives, and also assumptions within these strategies. The first strategy, influencing teacher turnover rates so that good teachers remain in the profession longer and poor teachers leave teaching sooner, includes consideration of occupational rewards, career structure, benefits,…

This report provides an overview of the findings of 3 studies conducted between 1995 and 1998 on school-based performance award (SBPA) programs. Such programs provide teachers, and often other school staff, with pay bonuses when their school as a whole achieves specific educational objectives. The studies focused on programs in the state of…

Little in the current literature reflects the views of those affected by the various proposals being advanced to improve the quality of teachers and teaching. This paper reports on a study that attempted to learn the reactions of teachers to some of the financial-incentive proposals being made to improve the quality of teachers and teaching. A…

This paper discusses the concept of performance-based pay, or merit pay, for teachers as a way to encourage better teaching. It begins with a general discussion of the issue of performance-based pay, which on the surface seems simple, but in practice is very complex. It continues with a discussion of whether the achievement to be assessed is based…

South Carolina school districts have been testing three different teacher incentive program models: the campus/individual model, the bonus model, and the career ladder model. All have problems and limited effectiveness. The solution will be a program based on rewarding merit rather than providing teacher incentives. (MD)

Argues that a private-practice model, in which a teacher or groups of teachers would sign a fee-for-service contract for instructional services in a public school, offers both an incentive for performance (which the school district seeks) and an opportunity for innovation (which the teachers seek). (CMG)

Included in this annotated bibliography of 11 publications on merit pay are reports covering various approaches to merit increases and the successes of a merit pay program in California's Round Valley School District, an Educational Research Service review of current research and practice on merit and incentive pay for teachers, an ERIC…

Much good work has recently been done on the socioeconomic history of teaching in the United States, particularly in relation to the "feminization" of the profession that occurred over the course of the nineteenth century. This article brings together evidence from disparate local sources in both North Carolina and New York to explore…

Proceedings of a conference on policy issues pertinent to the design and implementation of teacher incentive plans are highlighted in this report. Seven papers and pursuant responses are presented, which include discussions on the definition and importance of teacher incentives, job redesign and its organizational impacts, constraint and variety…