If local school officials have their way, the experimental kind of pay-forperformance scheme that benefited Betz —and her students—may become common for America’s teachers, especially those in struggling schools. Merit pay has long been controversial—teachers unions traditionally opposed it, school administrators complain it can be expensive and unwieldy, teachers say it forces them to compete against each other. Last week, as congressional hearings on the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind got underway, the tone was divisive, and it became clear that reaching consensus on changes to federal school-reform laws would be a long and difficult process. But, perhaps surprisingly, Republicans and Democrats in Washington are signaling that they are ready to embrace new iterations of performance-pay plans. Local governments aren’t waiting. There’s a clear line between low test scores and high teacher turnover, and school officials in Denver, Houston, Nashville and Chicago are hoping performance pay programs will lower teacher-attrition rates and make the job more attractive.
How do these programs work? Traditionally, teachers’ salaries start low—the national average is $30,000—then improve every year a teacher spends in the classroom. Performance-based pay provides monetary incentives to boost the salaries of even new teachers who do exceptionally good work. The idea has been around for decades, but most programs have usually proved too complicated to sustain. It’s hard to figure out who decides how a teacher is doing and how much a good job is worth.
Denver’s program started small. Back in 1999, the mayor, the superintendent and the union launched a pilot program with 15 schools. They spent seven years tinkering with the formula for pay. When they rolled it out citywide last year, the criteria by which teachers earn more were complicated: teachers who agreed to work in struggling schools, or teach hard-to-staff subjects, like middle-school math, got yearly bonuses. Teachers could also earn additions to their base pay by taking advanced courses to improve their classroom technique or by improving their students’ scores on state tests. At the same time, teachers’ pay can be docked if their students fall too far below expectations on state tests. Salary bumps for Denver teachers range from $342 to $9,800 a year.
The originators of Denver’s program are calling it a qualified success. Test scores and dropout rates remain about the same, but teacher applications at hardto-staff schools are up. Parents, who approved a $25 million-a-year property-tax hike to fund the program, like it, too. “I pay an extra $100 in taxes on my home,” says parent Holly Hudson, whose son, 10th grader Denzel, landed on the honor roll for the first time last spring. “But it’s worth it.”
Still, Denver’s success will be hard to replicate. Good performance-pay programs require strong local leadership, ongoing input from teachers and schools, good data collection on students and plenty of money. And it’s not yet clear what kind of bang schools get for their buck. “We simply don’t know if this is an effective policy yet,” says Matthew Springer, head of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University. Critics say the programs are a Band-Aid. While teachers may apply to hard-to-staff schools for a bonus of a couple of thousand dollars a year, says Harvard University education professor Katherine Boles, “money won’t get them to stay in those jobs. Teachers still face poor working conditions, low pay and inadequate supervision.”
Denver science teacher Lisa Yemma says she’ll probably enroll. “It’s not perfect, but I’ll give it a try.” In the past, the victories she achieved in the classroom have been mostly unsung. It will be nice, she says, to be recognized, even a little, for what she does every day.
